What You Don't Know, page 9
You parked out front last night. The car is out front, in the driveway, not the garage. Remember?
“What? What you doing? What you trying to pull?” Tree asked as Malcolm whirled around and they collided.
“I forgot … I parked out front. My car’s in the driveway, not the garage.”
Tree glared at him before stepping to the side and holding out his hands as if to say, “Lead the way.”
Malcolm opened the front door, his heart skipping as it revealed a sunny day. A beautiful day to golf. Guilt washed over him. Was he really thinking about golf? He’d woken up today craving the links. Couldn’t wait to get out of the house and away from Blair and her lunacy.
Except, if he was on that golf course now … lining up his shot, bullshitting with the guys … instead of here, here with Blair, here with Farrah…
He would never have forgiven himself for not being here.
Tree shut the door, which locked behind him. His finger instinctively sought the alarm when he glanced at the red panic button.
Hit the button, the horn goes crazy. Except, nobody comes running out. We tune out car alarms, we tune out car alarms. They annoy the fuck out of us. Nobody pays attention, nobody pays attention. Or maybe somebody does come running out. What’s all that noise? Hey, Malcolm, what’s all that noise? Tree panics. Starts firing. The two upstairs panic, start firing. Bloodbath, bloodbath, bloodbath.
Malcolm ran his good hand over his face, his frustration bubbling over with nowhere to go.
The safe, the safe, the safe. Can I get to my other safe in the study? Maybe. Right now, though, focus on the better bet. And right now, the better bet is the bank. Get to the bank, get to the bank, get to the bank. Alert them. Stall, stall, stall. Cops would be here in a matter of minutes. They could take the three assholes out. Arrest them, shoot them, made no difference. The bank, the bank, the bank. Better bet.
Mind made up on his play, Malcolm deactivated the alarm to the Mercedes. He ran his tongue across the salty dot of blood on his bottom lip and let his eyes travel across the expanse of trees shrouding his house from the main street. In fact, he likely wouldn’t be able to see any signs of life from his neighbors’ houses once they reached the street. There would be no flutter of curtains, no growling lawn mowers—not that anybody mowed their own lawns in Highland Park. There wouldn’t even be many cars moseying down the road. Not this quiet stretch. No one out to check the mailbox, give a friendly little wave to the neighbor across the street. Not even the lazy Saturday swish of a sprinkler. The entire street would be at its perpetual standstill, shielding them from the outside world and worse, each other. They all paid obscene amounts of money for the privilege of being left alone.
The silence screamed at him. Or maybe it was him screaming in his head, screaming for the street to wake up.
Malcolm put his hand on the driver’s side door handle and Tree clamped his fingers across his wrist. His body tensed, ready to strike. He had to remind himself not to wrench his hand away or turn around and get in a few pops to the guy’s nose.
Stay calm.
Instead, with cool and deliberate precision, he turned to Tree.
“Something wrong?”
“I think you should let me drive,” he said.
Malcolm shook his head and chuckled. “I can’t you let do that, man.”
“What you mean, you can’t let me do that? Thought you said you was gonna let me have whatever I wanted.”
“I did say that. And I will.”
“Well, I want to drive this car. In fact, I think this is the car I want.”
“Listen, brother, people see you driving my car, that’s gonna raise all kinds of questions. This is a small town where everybody knows everybody and bruh, let me tell you, a lot of people know who I am. They see you, they’re gonna be asking themselves, ‘Who is this guy? Why’s he driving Malcolm Gilbert’s car?’ and that’s gonna bring all kinds of suspicion. That what you want?”
Tree kept staring at him, furiously chewing the inside of his mouth.
“Is it?” Malcolm repeated.
“No.”
“All right then. I’ll drive.”
Tree released Malcolm’s wrist and flicked his head up. “All right. Cool. That’s cool. Yeah. You drive.”
Malcolm clicked his tongue against his teeth and proceeded to open the door.
Tree grabbed him again.
He drew up, his irritation swelling inside him like a balloon, thisclose to bursting. “What?”
“What’s our cover story?”
“Our what?”
“You know, our cover story, for when we hit up the bank. So people don’t get, like you said, suspicious.”
Silent, incredulous laughter rippled through Malcolm. Was this dude for real? What, did he think they were partners in crime or something? Brothers? Two dudes just out to collect thirty thousand dollars from the bank on a random Saturday because, hey, why not?
Malcolm cleared his throat and tried to keep the mirth fastened down tight.
“Well, okay, if we need a cover story, then we could say you’re the son of an old friend, in from out of town. Just showing you around for the weekend and I had to stop at the bank for a minute.”
“Make me your nephew,” Tree said. “That’s more believable if I’m related to you. You know, that I would be hanging out with you.”
“Yeah, sure, okay.” The quiet laughter bubbled again. “We’ll make you my nephew. My brother, Nate’s, youngest son. If anybody asks.”
“Yeah, that’s good, that’s good.” Tree smiled. “That’ll work.”
Malcolm rolled his eyes as he got behind the wheel. Instinctively, he reached over to flip on the Sirius, changing his mind just as quickly. Keep Tree focused on him. Keep him talking.
The decision however was taken away from him when Tree jammed his hand against the power button, quickly changing from Malcolm’s Classic Vinyl mainstay to a hip-hop and R&B station, jacking up the volume until the windows bounced with bass. The boy’s head bopped in time to muddy, unintelligible lyrics that he was somehow able to mimic with precision.
Malcolm twisted his lips into a tight bow, understanding. This was the hostile throng, chanting derision, hurling taunts onto the field.
Just another Sunday at the stadium.
He pulled out onto the main road, his head swiveling slightly at the sight of the maroon van parked in the winding driveway to his house. His quick glance told him it was non-descript and clean. He strained to see a license plate out of the corner of his eye, to stuff some of the numbers, the letters, into his memory, but couldn’t without drawing too much suspicion. For all anyone knew, he could have a worker at his house. A plumber. A roofer. Any laborer in the world, drawing zero suspicion. Did it belong to one of them? Did one of them work for a plumber, a roofer, or a laborer? His money was on Dio. He seemed capable of going to work every day, of putting in his time so he could collect his check. His gut told him Tree had serious problems holding down any kind of employment. A hot head. Trouble with authority. The kind of boy Daddy would refer to as trouble on legs. “That boy’s just trouble on legs. Don’t mess around with him.”
So they had parked in the driveway.
Why?
Why hadn’t they parked on the street and walked up to the front door?
And why his house? Why not the Wexlers across the street or the Robinsons next door?
Why them?
When I answered the door, he looked up at the doorframe. Like he was looking at the address.
Malcolm ran his tongue across the bloodied split of his lip before he cleared his throat and looked over at Tree, a stream of expletives dropping from the boy’s mouth like coins from a slot machine as he rhymed along with the radio.
He could have been freaked out to realize he’d stumbled into Malcolm Gilbert’s house.
Or he could have been checking . . .
To make sure he had the right house.
And the calling. Who does he keep calling? And the texting. Why does he keep texting? Who does he keep texting?
The air sailed out of Malcolm. They’d been targeted.
Not random.
Deliberate.
Why?
He glanced over at Tree again, his apprehension ratcheting up about ten notches.
Who are you?
“Who’s this?” Malcolm asked, working to keep his cool. Keep buddying up to him. Can I get him to drop some kind of hint? “I kind of like it.”
Tree scoffed. “Wouldn’t be nothing you’d like. Wouldn’t be nothin’ you’d know about. They talkin’ ’bout the streets, the life … the hard life.”
“My nephews, they like a lot of hip hop or whatever. Thought maybe I’d ask them about it next time I see them.”
Tree looked out the window. Malcolm shifted in his seat as he hit his blinker to turn left.
“The Day,” Tree finally said.
“Ah, okay, yeah, I have heard of him.” Malcolm turned. “I’m sure my nephews know him.”
Tree resumed singing—rapping—along. Out of the corner of his eye, Malcolm could see Tree giving him side eye. He shifted in his seat under the boy’s menacing gawk, his anxiety over this whole disaster coiling inside of him like a taut metal spring. Malcolm took a deep breath, his eyes on the road.
Stay cool. See what you can find out.
“So your boy calls you Tree.”
“Yeah. So?”
“’Cause you’re so tall, right? What are you, about six six, six seven?”
“Six seven.”
“Huh.” Malcolm nodded as though this was the most fascinating thing in the world. “Tree. Yeah. That’s cool.”
“That’s just what everybody called me when I was coming up.”
“You play ball?”
“With my boys once in a while.”
“What are you, shooting guard?”
“Yeah.”
“I always wanted to play basketball.” Malcolm lightly tapped the steering wheel. “My father said I had to play football.”
Tree scoffed and shook his head.
“He played football,” Malcolm continued. “So we all—me and my brothers—we all had to play football. We were a football family. Heard that every day of my life.”
“You know I met you before.”
Malcolm gripped the steering wheel with his left hand, turning his head to look at the guy. “What?”
Tree gnawed on his lip, and he suddenly shot his hand out to turn down the volume on the radio to an imperceptible muttering. Malcolm stole a glance. He was huddled against the window, staring at the palatial mansions zooming by, his elbow digging into his thigh, his fingers dancing over his bottom lip.
“It was a long time ago,” he finally said, twisting around to look at Malcolm. “When I was a kid, like eight, nine, ten years old.”
When he was a kid. Tree looked to be about mid-twenties, so what, fifteen, twenty years ago? Was that what this was about? Some imaginary slight from a million years ago?
“Where?”
“They had this assembly at my school. Out South. ‘Come meet the big football star Malcolm Gilbert.’” Tree’s voice curled around his name with derision. “You was talkin’ ’bout ‘work hard,’ ‘stay in school,’ all that bullshit.”
A rush of “the old days” flooded through Malcolm, his brain scanning the mishmash of schools, faces, gyms, and auditoriums, trying for some insane reason to pick Tree’s childhood face out of the crowd.
“It’s been a few years since I spoke at a school. When was this?”
“Shit, man, sometime in the two thousands. I don’t know.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“After your speech or whatever, they let you throw the football to us. Pose for pictures. Get you to sign shit.” Tree slouched in his seat and chuckled to himself. “I had you sign my Malcolm Gilbert number Forty Four jersey. Mama saved up for weeks to get me that jersey. Man, I idolized you. Had your magazine pictures taped to my wall, used to watch you on TV. Probably don’t even remember going to my school, do you? Dash? Dash Elementary? South Side?”
“It sounds familiar,” he said. A lie.
“Okay, okay, what you remember about the school?”
“I mean, I don’t remember the details—”
“Aw, man, you don’t remember. You probably did so many of those speeches—of course you don’t remember. Sayin’ the same damn thing every damn time.” Tree shook his head. “Bet you forgot all about us little hood rats the minute you got in your big fancy car, went home to your big-ass mansion.”
Malcolm flinched at the accurate accusation. He’d done so many of those stay in school tours, both while he was playing and after he retired, they became a blur of red brick, awkward, rambunctious kids with crusty trails of snot running out of their noses climbing all over him, and fawning teachers—the women and men alike drooling in his presence, for, mostly, different reasons.
The truth was, they had depressed him, these tours of duty through the decaying and crumbling public schools of a city that was maddeningly beautiful and ugly all at once. The poverty was suffocating. The distressing, hopeful looks from the kids. The naked, pleading adoration and desperation in their eyes. Make it better for us, Malcolm Gilbert. Tell us we’ll make it out of here. Tell us hope isn’t lost. Give us something to cling to.
He was but one person, one man. Personal responsibility and handouts had never been part of his DNA. Hard work. Bust your ass. That was who he was. That was the code he lived by, drilled into him from birth by the Admiral. “There’s no handouts in this life, boy. Nobody’s going to give you a damn thing. You want something, you go and grab it.”
Malcolm shook his head, trying and failing as usual to wipe the gravel of the Admiral’s voice from the hollows of his mind. Malcolm knew his message of study, work hard, and focus would land for only a fraction of those kids, if that many.
And he knew the rest would fall far short of their potential.
Still, after he retired, he was desperate to keep his mind, his hands, his time occupied. In those days, the silence hadn’t been so welcome. In those days, the silence hung over him like a black hole, threatening to obliterate him, swallow him in one agonizing gulp. In those days, he hated the silence, the idle time, the idea of a blank spot on the calendar staring back at him. Be interviewed for a football documentary? Sure. Go to New York for a game? No problem. Give a speech at a luncheon? Steak was his preferred entrée, but he’d settle for chicken. Never fish. Speak at a school? Tell him when and where.
Malcolm kept his eyes trained on the red light in front of him. “So what did you do, Tree?”
“What you mean?”
“What kind of impact did it have on you? Did you hear any of what I said?”
“You wanna know what kind of impact you had on me?”
“Yeah.”
“When it was my turn to get my jersey or whatever signed, I remember … I remember you said, ‘And what’s your name, son?’ And … man, in that moment, I wished so bad that…”
“What?”
“That you was my dad.”
Dad. Father. The boy wanted a father. He wanted Malcolm Gilbert to be his father.
“I never knew my pops. Not my real pops. That dude Moms married…” Tree shook his head, turning back to look out the car window. “He used to tell me all the time I wasn’t worth nothing, that I should have never been born. You ever had anybody tell you they wish you was never born? No, of course, you wouldn’t know nothing about that, because you Malcolm the Great. Malcolm the big football star. Everybody loves Malcolm. Like a damn TV show. Everybody Loves Malcolm.”
Malcolm pursed his lips. “I’m sorry to hear that. Really. No boy should have to grow up without a father.”
“Man, whatever.”
“You’ve had it tough, Tree. I’m sorry. I really am.”
“What you got to be sorry about? Huh? What the hell do you have to be sorry about? What, all that shit you was shoveling through the hood wasn’t worth nothing?”
“I just meant I’m sorry to hear life has been so hard for you. I’m sorry things didn’t work out for you the way you hoped.”
Tree stared at Malcolm before erupting into maniacal laughter. “Yo. You sound like a damn greeting card. ‘My condolences on your fucked up life.’ What a bunch of bullshit.” He was silent for a moment. “Bet you had a good daddy. Bet he didn’t run away from you.”
“No, no, there was no getting away from my father. He uh—” Malcolm chuckled and shook his head. “The Admiral was there for every game, every skinned knee, every lost tooth, every everything.”
Tree scoffed. “Figures.”
Malcolm didn’t say anything as the bank loomed large in front of him. He pulled into the parking lot, took a spot directly in front of the door, and cut the engine.
“We’re here,” he said.
Love and Marriage
Lani Jacobs: Did they have a good marriage? Yeah. Yeah, I would say so. I never—the thing about … you know they bickered a lot. I never saw them have a knockdown, drag-out fight or anything like that. No, they just picked at each other, but it wasn’t serious. I mean, I didn’t take it seriously. In fact at times, you could tune it out completely.
* * *
Mitch Gilbert: Did they have a good marriage? I mean, they had their ups and downs like any married couple. Blair … look up pistol, in the dictionary, okay? Yeah. I mean (laughs), Malcolm would say she was a nutjob, but she was his nutjob.
* * *
Bridget Johnson: My sister had no idea how to cook when she got married—our mother didn’t teach us that (laughs)—and she learned how to cook all of Malcolm’s favorite foods. She went to every football game, every football event, even though she didn’t know anything about football. And sure, Malcolm bought her jewelry, took her on trips, and all of that, but what she probably loved the most was that she could count on him. Always.
