A Dead Man Speaks Read online

  Three’s a nice number? Well so was two, or four, shit. What is his trip? But whatever it was, I knew I wasn’t gonna get too deep into it. Just do my job, save some money, and get the hell out of there.

  But he just kept on going. His eyes measured me. “Yes, I really do like three. The unbalance, yet balance to it. Three is a holy number, the trinity, you know.”

  I grabbed some silverware. “Hey, man, I think I better set my tables.”

  He grabbed my arm with a strong hand. “Do you ever think about spiritual things?”

  Now I knew he’d gone ape shit. I shook my head no.

  “We should talk sometimes. I could teach you a lot.”

  The hell you will. But I couldn’t say that. I needed this job and the place to crash. ”Yeah, I’ll check it out.”

  He smiled that weird moony smile of his.

  “Clive!”

  I realized that I’d totally spaced. Amber was waving her hand in front of my face. “Wow, man, I thought I’d lost you for a minute.”

  “Sorry, I spaced…”

  She giggled. “Then it’s working.”She kinda danced around me, twirling a scarf around my face. “You’re officially fucked up.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

  The nights in no name were quiet. A different kind of quiet than Hendersonville. There you always had night sounds, crickets, and shit. But here, it was just, quiet. Sometimes at night, I’d see her face—Laurel. I’d see her eyes. One time it seemed so real that I just knew that she was here, next to me. It started happening so much, this feeling of her being there, that one day I decided to call her. I had to know what she was doing, if she was thinking about me as much as I was thinking about her, or if I was just going plain crazy. So I called her. I don’t really know what I expected to say or what I expected her to say, but I sure didn’t expect what I got.

  “This number is no longer in service.” I hung up. Shit, she’s moved on. Right then I decided no more thoughts of her. Whatever it was that happened that night would stay there in Hendersonville, buried in the past. A past that I was determined was not gonna fuck up my future. So whenever thoughts of her would try to creep in, I’d push ’em away and think about the reason I left.

  I’d been here two months now, and I was starting to save a little cash. I’d also found out that there was a college not far away, Whitmore. I figured I’d hang here for a few more months, save some more dough, and then see about getting into Whitmore or anyplace else for the winter semester. I hadn’t forgotten my goal. The way I looked at it, no name was just a temporary stopping place before I got into the real shit. College and the rest of my life.

  These thoughts were tumbling through my head, as they did most nights, so I didn’t hear the soft approach of footsteps. I opened my eyes and was looking into Raisin’s dark black holes of eyes. She didn’t say anything at first, she just stared, the way she always did. Then she let her robe drop to the ground. She was totally naked. I smiled. “Well hello.” Now this was live.

  She smiled shyly. Not a bad body. Small, compact, but serviceable. She sat on the edge of my bed, and then crawled in. Burrowing next to me, kissing me all over. For a woman who’d barely said two words to me, she was all in my shit.

  “I want you.” And that’s all she said. She just went for it.

  And so did I. The last time had been that last night in Hendersonville, so I was ready for some. And she was more than ready to give it up. She was so small and light that she could do all sorts of acrobatic shit. But the weird thing was that she didn’t make a sound. No moans, or groans, just silence.

  And when we finished, she got up as quietly as she’d gotten in, draped her robe around her small warm body and whispered, “Don’t tell Amber and Poppy.”

  “No problem.” I slept real good that night.

  The next morning, Raisin looked like nothing had happened. She stared at me as usual, and then looked away quickly. But one time, just once I caught a glimpse of something else. Then it was gone. The ultimate zipless sex, I supposed.

  * * *

  I closed the bathroom door behind me. I liked to get in early before the girls got in and steamed it all up. But today I figured I didn’t really have to worry. They’d all been out late with Doug, some poetry reading or something. They’d asked me to come, but I got out of it. The less time I spent with Doug the better, and eight hours a day at the no name was plenty for me.

  I turned on the water nice and hot and stepped in. Letting the warm water run over me. Felt good, sensual. I grabbed the bar of soap and started lathering up when I became aware of somebody’s hands on my back, massaging it with a bar of soap. I smiled, thinking it must be Raisin, back for some more. That chick never got enough. But when I turned around, I met the clear brown eyes of Poppy. Wet and nude. Shit, this whole thing was starting to have a déjà vu feel to it. I smiled, not quite sure how to react. I was usually good on my feet, but I gotta admit, this had kinda thrown me for a loop.

  “No daisies?” That’s about all I could think of to say. Cause it was the first time I’d seen her without a bunch of half dead daisies stuck between her boobs. This time, there were no daisies, nothing. Just bare flesh, brown and damp from the steam of the shower.

  She smiled, that half-dazed smile of hers. “I can get some if you like, and tickle your you know what.” She giggled again.

  I couldn’t believe this, thinking about the dry spells I’d had in Hendersonville, this shit was unbelievable. “No, I think we can manage without them.”

  She let the bar of soap slip out of her hands to the floor. I pulled her in and closed the curtain.

  When we finished, she pressed her wet body against mine, twirling her hands in my hair and whispered, “This is our secret, right?”

  I was beginning to get it. “Sure.” But I wanted to say I’m starting to have the same secret with everybody around here. I thought about all of that as I bussed the tables at no name and carted the dirty dishes to the tiny kitchen in the back. Doug had been gone all day, so I could relax a little more than usual. When he was around, I always had to watch my back. Literally. He was just a little too friendly for my tastes. But I figured I could take his weepy stares a few months more, just ‘til I could save up enough to get to a college somewhere.

  “Hey, watch out!”

  I ran right smack into Dobey, the lanky white guy who bussed the other tables. “Shit.” He spilled the bottle of ketchup he’d been carrying all over the front of my white shirt. “Fuck!”

  “Wow, man, I’m sorry, I guess I wasn’t looking.”

  “Damn.” I sucked my teeth in disgust. The last thing I felt like doing was having to change my clothes. The place was packed with the lunch time rush, and I couldn’t afford to lose those tips. But it wasn’t all his fault either. I hadn’t exactly been concentrating on where I was going, so I figured why trip. “Don’t sweat it. I’ll just run up and change. Cover for me, okay?”

  “Yeah sure. No problem.”

  I stuffed my tips in my pocket and bolted up the rickety stairs to our upstairs apartment. The minute I opened the door, I knew something was up. Call it sixth sense or whatever, but I knew I wasn’t alone. I walked quietly down the hallway into the living room, half expecting to jump on somebody trying to rob the place, when I stopped dead in my tracks.

  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Doug and Amber getting into it. I mean really into it, but on my bed! “What the fuck are y’all doin’?” I musta scared the shit outta them, because they jumped up as if there’d been a fire alarm or something. The funny thing was that Doug didn’t look surprised. In fact, he looked pleased.

  He threw the covers back exposing his nude body. I turned away. The last thing I wanted to see was his naked ass. He got out of the bed, parading around like some damn stud horse. “Want to join us, Clive? I can assure you it would be like nothing you’ve ever experienced.”

  I think I was too shocked to say anything. The thought of
being in bed with a naked pervert was about all I could take. My stomach turned over. Amber wasn’t saying anything, but truth is she didn’t look too upset to see me either. I think I was the only one who gave a damn. Doug turned to Amber, waving his hand toward me dramatically. “Amber, darling, make Clive feel welcome.”

  She grinned. “Right on!” She hopped out of the bed, her plump breasts flapping against her chest as she jumped over to me and started trying to unbutton my pants. “Wanna get high first?”

  Doug gurgled with satisfaction at the mention of pot. He stayed half-high most of the time anyway. “Oh yes, let’s do,” he cooed, sounding like some drunk pigeon.

  “Naw! Get the fuck outta my bed!”

  Doug turned to me coolly as he took a long toke from the joint that Amber had just rolled. “Whose bed did you say this was? I do believe that I still own this place.” He stopped, letting the smoke curl into his nostrils. “And everything in it.”

  He turned to me, the smile gone from his face. The look in his eyes, demented and far away, made me stop short. “Amber, I think that Clive has a rather nasty attitude for someone in the family, and that won’t do. You see, Clive, we are family here, and as family, we share…everything. And everyone.”

  Amber, suddenly, looked scared. She whispered, almost pleaded with me. “Just do what he wants, okay. It’ll be fun…”

  But I didn’t see fun in her eyes, just pure naked fear. That’s when I knew I was getting the hell out of there before something went down that I didn’t want to be a part of. “This shit’s too crazy for me!”

  I bolted for the door. Amber tried to run after me, but he held her back as she shouted. “Wait, Clive…come back…please…please!”

  Doug leaned back on the bed, his eyes following me out of the room. “Oh, let him go. He’ll be back. Where else has he got to go?”

  But I didn’t go back. I’d had enough of no name and women who fucked you without saying a word, and then acted as if nothing had happened. I was getting away. That night I slept in the woods. The next morning I waited until they’d all gone. I knew they had their regular Saturday morning meditation thing with Doug at his place, so I went back in and gathered up my stuff in double quick time. I thought about leaving a note. The girls had actually been nice, and not bad lays either, but I figured I’d better just make a clean break.

  Thinking about the whole situation, I just couldn’t erase from my mind the fear I saw in Amber’s eyes. And the more I thought, the more the whole thing made sense, Poppy’s detachment, Raisin’s queer silence and especially the way they latched onto me. As if I were some kind of savior or protector. Then it hit me. That’s exactly what I was supposed to have been. Their protector from Doug. But I didn’t quite go along with their plans.

  Now, the question in my mind was what were my plans? I had no job, no place to live, and just a little more saved than when I’d left Hendersonville. Maybe enough to cover college for a semester, maybe two. I’d always counted on getting some kind of scholarship or financial aid to fill the gap. I sat at the base of the tree. And for some reason, I thought about Missus Foster. I hadn’t thought about her since I got her letter right before I left Hendersonville. The sadness was still there, because I couldn’t think about her without thinking about Daddy, too, and how different things would’ve been if he’d still been here.

  I pulled Daddy’s letter out of my duffle bag. I turned it over in my hand, holding the sealed envelope up to the moonlight, trying to see inside. It’s almost as if everything that Daddy ever was, was inside that envelope. A couple of times I’d almost opened it. But I’d decided that I’d keep the promise to Daddy, and I wouldn’t open it ‘til my eighteenth birthday, a month from now. I could wait a month. For, Daddy. I could wait. I put the envelope carefully back into the corner of my bag, ramming it way in the back so there’d be no way it could fall out.

  As I stuffed it in the bag, I looked at my few things crumpled up inside, and I saw my SAT scores, still unopened. Hell, I might as well open ’em now, what do I have to lose. I was too tired and stressed at this point to even be scared at how I did. For a minute I saw Laurel in her classroom the way it used to be, helping me, and that sweet smell of soap, shampoo, and flowers she always had. Then I shoved the memory away. I swallowed hard and tore open the envelope.

  I smiled. I did ok. Shit. I did real well. I was going to college. Somewhere. I promised myself that. And I wasn’t letting myself down.

  * * *

  New York

  “Clive…Oh, Clive, baby…Oh God I’m so…” She leaned over me. The blood from my shirt soaked her skin, turning it a brownish red. As I looked in her eyes, I could feel her tears, touching my face, as her soft hands used to. Then I realized that I couldn’t really feel anything. Because I was dead.

  I looked down at me, lying there motionless, and I saw her sobbing over me. Shaking me, trying to will me back to life. But I knew it was too late. I felt this detachment, but at the same time an inexplicable heaviness. Something was pulling me back toward my body, which I didn’t really even feel was mine anymore. Something wasn’t letting me leave. Suddenly, the room was light, brighter than I’ve ever seen it. I couldn’t see her, or me. Just this blinding light. Whispers from eternity called me, telling me that I had to find out. I had to make peace for peace to come to me.

  I had to know. Who would do this to me? I heard a rushing noise pulling me backwards in time. I saw my wife and my office, and then they faded away as I went back further. Something was guiding me. I knew that something was my father. He was here but not here. Talking to me. It was his voice whispering to me. I knew that he knew, but that I would never be able to come to him unless I knew, too.

  Where did it begin? Where did the change start? I knew when. And then I was back there, looking at those faces. Being there again, like I’d never left and become someone new.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  College Boy

  “Tell me your name again.”

  “Clive January.”

  “Uh…huh…and tell me again, Clive, how you got here, to Whitmore, I mean. It seems like a long way to go from Atlanta.”

  I met his steady gaze without flinching. I knew that I couldn’t blink, ’cause if I did it was all over. “Well, my father was in the military. He was killed in Nam, and so I lived with my grandmother in Atlanta. She was sick, and then when she died, well, I didn’t have any other folks or anything.”

  “What about your mother?”

  I didn’t move a muscle. “She was killed in a car accident when I was five.”

  His face softened for a moment. “So you’re completely alone in the world?”

  “Yes, sir, completely.”

  He leaned back in his chair, wrinkling his brow. The leather creaked as he settled in. I looked around the room. There were diplomas on the wall and a large bookcase in the corner stuffed with books that looked like a million students had opened and closed their covers, with each one wearing the spines thinner and thinner until wide spider web cracks covered the books.

  “Well, this is a most unusual situation. You don’t have your high school transcripts, but I must admit that these are exceptional SATs, and you would…” He cleared his throat apologetically. “Uh add to the…diversity of the student body at Whitmore.”

  He glanced over at the white woman sitting in the corner. She was probably in her thirties, but her faded brown skirt and slightly rumpled blouse made her look older. The sunlight from the window in back of her formed a hazy circle around her, giving her and the room an almost surreal look. She and the dean seemed to exchange a secret glance. “So what I’m proposing is that we give you the freshman qualifying exams. If you pass, well then I think that we could invite you to be a part of the freshman class here at Whitmore.”

  That was four years ago. I sipped on my pina colada and thumped my fingers to the strains of Disco Inferno. I smiled to myself, the room was starting to have that nice wavy feel to it. I almost laughed. What a scam.


  And now I had my degree and my passport to the world, and all because a little college in Maine needed a few more black folks to qualify for their federal money. I found out later that’s why they jumped on me when I showed up with my orphan story. The funny thing is, I’d felt like an orphan since Daddy died, so in a way it was true. Even if it weren’t true, at this point I’d said it so many times that I had actually started believing it. Hendersonville and that whole period of my life was something that had happened to someone else. I shuddered, realizing how true that really was.

  I found out just how true when I turned eighteen. I’d just started at Whitmore. I remember wandering over to a far end of the campus. The trees looked like bright blotches of reds and yellows against the cool blue sky. It was October, and it had just started to get cold, but that’s not why I was shivering. I was about to find out what Daddy had wanted me to know so much that he’d put it down in a letter and had it sent to me all these years later.

  Dear Clive,

  I want you to know that there’s never been nobody in my whole life, not even my folks, who I loves like you. You’re my son, my boy. You always was, and you always will be. I’m ’bout to tell you something so’s you hear it from me and not somebody who don’t love you.

  As I read further, my heart sank lower and lower. Some black thing was covering me up, choking me, forcing this bitter taste up from my gut. I couldn’t stop myself from wrenching forward and vomiting in the grass. Daddy’s handwriting was big and awkward on the yellowed paper, screaming out what I’d asked to know, but now wish I never had. I knelt next to the tree, wishing that tears would come out. I threw up repeatedly, wishing that I’d fallen off the ladder, not Daddy, because nothing else seemed to matter anymore. My life was a lie, everything about me was a lie. The last words of the letter stung my eyes.

  …Now maybe you can understands your ma a little better. Why she been the way she is. I know she done some mean things to you, but you gotta try and forgive her. Try for me. You’ll always be my little Clive. I love you.