Dashboard Elvis is Dead, page 2
See ye at the Gala, th’night, Sadie?
Ye will, that. Must be about ma turn wi’ they numbers. Huvnae won big since Moses wis a wean!
Both women laugh again. Sadie walks away to join the queue at the counter. Eileen opens her newspaper. She leans to one side and whispers to me out the side of her mouth, as if we are Cold War spies passing a secret.
Poor Sadie, her man died a fortnight ago.
Oh. I’m not quite sure of what else to say. That’s dreadful, I eventually add.
Aye, she mumbles. He wis a right bastart though, so nae great loss, ah suppose. Still, ye’d miss a gammy leg wi’ gangrene if it got cut off, eh?
I check my phone. No messages. My plans for the next few days depend on one. I resist the urge to look at Twitter. I put the phone back in my pocket and reopen my notebook, and as I do so, the café’s hubbub simmers down for a moment, and I hear it: ‘She’s Gone’, prodding at me from the coffee shop’s speakers. It’s funny how you remember summers by the records you heard; and two records stood out during 1983 – that tumultuous year when everything changed for me. There was ‘She’s Gone’ and Laurie Anderson’s ‘O Superman’. Neither were released that year, but I’ve come to associate them with it. With AJ Carter. I start writing:
Years later, rereading my journal entries, I am surprised at how dispassionate they are. I had diarized AJ’s killing in the same way. As if I was emotionally removed. As if it wasn’t my school. As if it hadn’t taken place on the sports field on which I’d competed. As if he wasn’t my – I couldn’t write it then and I still struggle to – boyfriend.
…Yeah, I thought I’d reminisce some more. That’s all this is, right?
It’s hard to concentrate. I’ve become aware of the old woman mouthing the headlines that she’s reading.
Ach, pish, says Eileen.
That is not one of the headlines.
Pish, she repeats.
Is everything alright? I ask her.
Whit’s that, hen? she asks, perhaps realizing that she’s been louder than she intended. Aw, it’s nothin’, love. Bloody lottery numbers. Fifteen quid a week for ower twenty year. Sweet F.A. She sighs. Christ, if ah’d just saved aw that money, ah could’ve done a Shirley Valentine, an’ left that useless toerag behind!
Glaswegian women like Eileen seem happy to laugh at their own misfortune.
Then a punchline with an acerbic edge:
Freedom, eh?
Eileen folds her newspaper. She pours more tea. She takes the teabag from the pot. She squeezes it tightly against the cup. She wraps it in a tissue. She puts it in her bag.
Minutes pass, me writing, the old woman staring quietly out of the window. Driving rain now pounds the pavement. An older man moves into the view, framed by the wooden window surround, noticeable because of his struggle against the rain, and against the general direction of the other pedestrians. He appears to trip over something. He’s down. The old woman rises immediately. She, Sadie and two others are outside in a flash. Like geriatric Avengers. I watch them tending to their fallen, sodden comrade without a thought that I should be out there helping them. My first instinct is always to observe. The rest of Eileen’s cake has gone. It resurfaces outside in the hand of the old man. The old woman lifted it so deftly, I didn’t even notice.
The group returns. The old man’s lips are laced with chocolate. His eyes are glazed. He may not have tripped over anything physical.
Daft aul’ goat, says the old woman. She’s back in the seat next to me.
Is he alright? I ask.
Ach aye. He went doon there as if he’d been shot by a sniper. Ah saw him clutchin’ his chest. Ah thought it wis his heart.
She slurps at the cold tea.
He had his fags in the top pocket an’ he wis tryin’ tae save them fae gettin’ squashed.
A loud cackle accompanies a shake of her head.
Aye, even when we’re pished, we never forget about life’s priorities, eh?
I smile. I watch her gather her things. And then I return to the page.
Larry. Poor Larry. Larry told good stories.
Listen, hen, ah’ll need tae go. Get his tea oan. Nice chattin’ tae ye. Eileen stands. Ye away somewhere nice, yersel?
Eh, well … I’m not too sure. I have a meeting at Petershill Drive.
Having been set to leave, the old woman sits down again.
Aye? Ye need tae watch yersel’ up at they Red Road flats, hen. It’s no’ the nicest ae places. Ma boy’s oot that way. He’s no’ had his troubles tae seek, like. Eileen leans in closer. Whit’s yer business up there?
She won’t go until I elaborate, it’s clear. I find it disconcerting to be discussing something so personal with a stranger. I wish I’d simply said no or invented something.
I’m here to catch up with someone I haven’t seen in a very long time.
I surprise myself.
If they’ll see me, that is, I add.
Yes!
I look at the old woman. The old woman winks and glances downwards.
Yes? she says again; this time inquisitively.
I look down at the page. I had written the word several times without being aware of it; like a tableau of absent-minded doodles.
Is it yer fella? Ye got a man up they towers? Did he propose? Is that who yer writin’ tae? Is it a love letter? Is that whit yer writin’?
Her questions rip into me like I’m in the dock. But then she softens:
That’s awfy … romantic, hen.
Ah, no. No, that’s not what I’m writing. I stutter.
A polygraph chart of this conversation would resemble an outline of the Grand Canyon.
I don’t know what this is, I admit.
There are few blank pages remaining in my notebook, and this is volume number twelve.
The old woman tilts her head. The old woman touches my knee. Again. Once again, I flinch.
Yes, says Eileen. She’s giving me the answer to the question she thinks is troubling me.
If only more ae us had said yes. She tuts.
What’s the worst that could happen? Trust yersel, love. Ye’ll dae fine.
The old woman stands. Smiles.
Cheerio, darlin’, she says. Aw the best wi’ waitin’ for yer man.
The old woman opens the door. She leans forwards to bolster herself against the angular rain. And then she’s gone. Another one of these fleeting encounters that I always attach so much significance to. I’m left wondering whether the old woman will give our conversation a further thought. As she heads home, or later today, or next week, or in a year’s time.
Ah wonder if that American lassie ever did say Yes?
I pick up my phone. The call rings out. Once again. I am politely encouraged to leave a message by an anonymous female voice.
Hi. It’s me again. I’m sorry for leaving so many messages, but I really want to see you once before I go back to the States.
There’s a gap. All she’ll hear is my breathing. I’m not sure what else to say, especially if this is my last chance. I don’t want to plead. I simply say,
Yes. I do.
PART ONE:
1983 – The Land of the Free
A State of Independence (1)
by Judithea Montgomery
Humble, TX. Yes. It wasn’t always bad.
1: My favorite dungarees. The white sneakers I found when I was nine. Yes. And my Starsky & Hutch T-shirt. Oh. Yes. 2: The big rusting skillet everything was cooked in. 3: Sizzling catfish from the fishing trips to Lake Houston. Hmm. Yes. 4: The clouds of cigar smoke mixing with the meat smoke (when Larry’s money stretched far enough for both). Yes. 5: Gonzales. The belligerent beer-drinking hound that hated everybody. (Gonzales – or Gonzo – was Larry’s dog. I tried to poison him, and he bit me. He liked me after that.) 6: The fresh paint from Ed White’s new fence. 7: The taste of the Cognac. Hmm. Yes. Like the best maple syrup ever made. Dripping slowly down my twelve-year-old throat. The burn from it. Yes, yes. Replacing my take with Larry’s after-shave. Hoping (in vain) it would make Momma sick because she’d made Larry ground me. 8: The nights when Larry tended bar. 9: ‘O Superman’. Playing it incessantly. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. It droned, and drove Momma crazy in the days before I left. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. 10: When love is gone, there is always justice / and when justice is gone, there is always force / and when force is gone, there is always Mom. 11: The thick gasoline smells of the trailer park. Dirty engine parts everywhere. Oily puddles. 12: Interstate 69: The Greyhound to Houston with stolen money and second-hand roller skates. Yes. 13: And Adam John Carter. Hmm. Mutual attraction. Yes. AJ. Yes! 14: ‘I love you.’ ‘I love you, too.’ 15: Me, fifteen years old, and three of the bases. Hmm. The solid feel of him. Yes. 16: Ice cubes and homemade piercings. Yes. 17: The fake ID. The Lyons Park drive-in. Yes. 18: Popcorn. Soda spilling, and An Officer and a Gentleman. 19: The last night. The last, lingering, probing kiss. Hmm. Yes. 20: To the memory of AJ Carter. Yes.
If the truth of any situation is merely how we choose to memorialize it, then it’s surely important to commemorate the good things.
The darkness, when it descended, it descended on the whole town.
Not just on me.
But that’s not how it felt.
It felt like it was mine, alone.
4th June 1983:
It is my birthday. Sweet sixteen. Delphine Toussaint, my mom, has allowed me to stay home from school. Larry is driving a car to Dallas for his boss. So Momma wants some company, I guess. She is in a good mood. Sober too. That will make it particularly memorable. We sit on the porch. We laugh about Gonzo chasing a rabbit. And Gonzo’s fat hairy ass getting jammed in a gap in Ed White’s fence.
Aw Jeez, Jude, Ed wails. I’m gonna have to paint that again now!
But even he can’t prevent a smile at our big, dumb dog’s attempts to free himself. Mom and I shake so hard at this. That rare type of uncontrollable laughter where you can’t even speak. Your jaws ache. Tears fall, but they’re the good kind for once. I’m going to pee my pants if my pelvic muscles lose control too.
Ed is a new neighbor. He came around and introduced himself when he moved in. He seems nice. The others around and across from us aren’t nice. Uppity niggers, I’ve heard whispered when out doing circuits. Mom’s boyfriend Larry … Larry Espinosa, a Mexican, is guilty by association. We have two paid jobs in our house: Larry’s, at the bar, and my weekend shifts at the local store. That is so unusual around here by itself it would attract opprobrium, but the even bigger issue for many of our neighbors is that I’m at Humble High School on an athletics scholarship. One of my grade-school coaches had gotten a job there and recommended me for one of a two-student program. My previous school still bore the old signs that segregated the public restrooms and the drinking fountains, yet this poor white-trash community we call home fixates on our limited social privilege because we aren’t white.
We come inside. We sit on the sofa. My mom in her regular place, me on an arm. We eat ice cream. We watch an old movie. I am happy.
And then the darkness comes. Stability gives way to confusion. Joy interrupted by tragedy.
Sirens screaming past isn’t news. Only a month past, Al Havens took a shotgun and fired it at his neighbor over a disputed bet. The sirens were loud then too. They only stopped when Al Havens was dead. He’d tried to give himself up, Larry said, but the cops shot him anyway. Just to be sure. That happens a lot in our community. Doubt rarely benefits the Black locals. Thirty-eight people dead in five years, usually following domestic altercations. But this cacophony is different. It is something out of the ordinary. Something remarkable. By mid-afternoon, the sirens have escalated into an unhinged orchestra of chaos. Something big is happening downtown. A large fire, maybe. Or a multiple RTA on the highway. We remain sure that it is something accidental.
A month earlier:
It begins innocuously enough. Larry gets a call. He is always getting a call. This time, he’s to collect a set of expensive golf clubs and drive them over to the new course. The one that just opened, out west of the airport. Momma is days into a withdrawal temper, so I go with Larry, just to get out of her range.
Jack designed it, but I’m sure Lee helped him, Larry says, like Jack and Lee are his drinking buddies from the bar. It seems strange to me that Larry can get so excited and animated about a course they’d never let someone like him play. Larry is never happier than when scuttling practice shots off the Texas hardpan over the trees behind us. Golf is his dream. Larry has a fertile imagination. If you keep quiet and out of sight, you can hear him addressing the ball. Commentating in the third person. He’s part of a three-ball with Nicklaus and Trevino. Trevino is Larry’s hero. Trevino is a professional Mexican. Larry is a real Mexican. Trevino was dirt poor once. Larry is dirt poor still. Trevino can play the new course. He is an acceptable outsider. He’s overcome his poverty, like it was a disease. He has been cleansed. Larry isn’t cleansed.
Never thought I’d ever get the chance, he says as we drive up Farrell Road. He is referring to seeing the course, not playing it.
The turning is on us before we know it. And the turning is tight. A sharp right into a dense tree belt. No signs. The rich white people it has been created for don’t want it to be easy to find. A few twisted bends later and we reach the gatehouse. Metal capitals on the imposing gates read: THE LOCHINVAR GOLF CLUB. The place has a Scottish heritage. As do I. On a plate under that: Private Members Only. Two guards come out. One tall, one small. Stetsons tilted forwards. Both holstering weapons. Anticipating trouble. Right hands held higher than lefts. Both wandering around the car. Eyes darting around the inside like they’ve observed the cops doing. Aspiring to be someone more powerful.
Help you, sir? asks the taller guard. He speaks to Larry but looks at me. My eyes are level with the butt of his revolver. It has worn black tape wrapped around it.
I’m here for Mr Oliver, says Larry.
Which one? asks the taller guard.
Uh … Drayton, Larry replies. He hesitates as if unfamiliar with his boss’s first name.
Which one? stresses the smaller guard. Larry looks puzzled.
Senior or junior? The patience of the taller guard is being stretched.
Hmm. Senior, I guess. The taller guard opens a hand and wafts it, exhorting Larry to continue with our purpose.
I have the clubs … in the trunk. The golf clubs. Mister Oliver’s clubs, says Larry.
His nervousness is obvious.
Mister Drayton Senior, Larry adds.
The taller guard looks at the smaller guard.
He, uh, asked me to bring them to him, says Larry. Finally.
Wait here, says the taller guard.
Wait there, echoes the smaller guard, pointing to a there as his superior speaks into a walkie-talkie. A few nods of the head. Another glance at me. Then a shake.
Okay, you go through. Someone will meet you at the top of the drive. Don’t get out of the car, says the taller guard.
His smaller colleague removes his hat. He rubs a stubby hand across an aggressive crew cut. He heads back to the gatehouse and then the gates open slowly.
Not her, says the taller guard. He is standing in front of the car. She stays here.
Larry shrugs at me as the car pulls away through the gates and into the verdant nirvana of his fantasy. The taller and smaller cuckoos retreat into their timber-paneled clock house. And I am left. Sat cross-legged on the roadside in the blistering sunshine.
I don’t see him approaching. I have lost all sense of time passing. Larry seems to have been gone hours.
Hi, he says.
I stare up at him. The sun is directly behind him. At first, I can’t see anything but his muscular outline.
I’ve seen you around Humble High, he says. You run track, don’t you? I’m AJ.
My eyes adjust and I know him. Adam John Carter. AJ in bold university-style font on the deepest-blue shirt. He is a star high-school quarterback. From the celebrated team. The golden generation. He and his father, the politician Devlin Carter, have been successfully courted by the Houston Cougars. I know some of this. It is big Humble High School news. AJ Carter won’t know anything of me. Not even my name. Just perhaps that I run sprints in the school track team two grades below him. We were both awarded a sports medal on the same day over a year ago. Were positioned at opposite ends of a wide-framed group photograph. Delphine didn’t purchase a copy when she had the chance, but the original still hangs in the school’s large public foyer. He can’t have remembered me from that day.
It’s Jude, right?
I look down. My store name badge? Nope. I don’t have it. I can’t believe it. How can he know?
Yeah, I stutter. Unsure of myself.
Are you okay out here? he asks.
This is not a place for the likes of me.
Uh … yeah. Sure. Thanks. I have to wait here for my, uh … for Larry. Um, he’s my momma’s… I tail off because AJ Carter can’t possibly be interested in my reasons for being here. He shakes his head.
I hate this club an’ their stupid rules, he says. Do you want to sit in my car? He nods over his shoulder towards the vehicle.
Mister Carter? The taller guard emerges from the timber gatehouse. He advances toward us. Perhaps he’s concerned that I present a threat to the young white sportsman almost a foot taller than me. Are you okay, sir? The taller guard presses his concern. Just doing his job.
AJ Carter smiles knowingly at me as he opens the passenger-side door.
The expensive golf clubs Larry is transporting to the Lochinvar Golf Club are a gift from Larry’s boss to Devlin Carter, for his son, AJ. Larry’s boss is repaying a favor with this gift. Devlin Carter’s favorite son has been summoned to accept the gift in person. And to be paraded in front of his father’s golf-club fraternity before heading to the University of Houston in the fall. AJ Carter doesn’t want to be here.
