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Revenge is a confession of pain. —OLD LATIN PROVERB
I’m sure she would have ended the diatribe with “Bless your heart,” which is Southern for “Fuck you, bitch,” if she hadn’t expired.
wear suits for their grandmother’s funeral. Some were wearing untucked dress shirts; some were wearing basketball jerseys and T-shirts emblazoned with Momma J’s face. I’m sure Momma J was looking down with pride as the cast of a low-budget hip-hop video loaded her into our hearse.
“La’Unique, see your man gonna hit me in the back like a punk bitch? And this who you left me for? Fuck you and him!”
he yelled. The man tried to twist out of my grip, but my hand was bigger than his whole arm. He turned his head and tried to bite the inside of my forearm. I kicked the side of his left knee with my right foot, and he dropped like he was about to propose. It was a love tap really. I didn’t want to break his leg. I twisted his wrist counterclockwise and plucked the trailer hitch out of his hand.
“Fools and flies both I do despise, but the more I know of fools, the more I like flies,”
It wasn’t until I was older that I realized they were envious of Dad because he was a white man who had married one of the prettier Black women in the county.
The animal that lived south of my waistline noticed the woman standing behind them. She was tall as well but built like a brick outhouse. Her body had curves in places most women had nothing but hopes and dreams. She was wearing an off-the-shoulder clingy white blouse and a black miniskirt so tight it could have been a tattoo. Her long legs ended in black stiletto heels. Her brown skin was covered with a bright glossy sheen. A honey-blond mane swept down her back to her narrow waist. She had spent a pretty penny on her hair extensions, but no man that met her would mind. Her bee-stung lips
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“He said it was the best hustle he had ever gotten into. Even better than the drug game. That was my dad for ya,” she said. I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so I resorted to some mannerly funeral home jargon I had picked up from Walt.
don’t give a fuck how you put him away. Just bury him deep so he’s that much closer to Hell,” she said as she flicked her cigarette butt on the ground.
The two old women sitting across from me were studies in dignity. They held their gray heads up high. I didn’t want to burst their bubble, but I didn’t have a good heart. My heart had been shattered the day my parents died. Since I’d quit the sheriff ’s department, I had done some odd jobs for some folks in the counties, earning a reputation as a man who could help you on the down low. Do things the cops couldn’t or wouldn’t do.
Growing up biracial, I have been able to observe the cultures of both sides of my lineage. I was always amazed at how many more similarities there were than differences.
The Queen County Sheriff ’s Department could be bought. They could be bullied. They could be incompetent. They could be all three at the same time. That was how the drunk racist who ran my parents off the North River Bridge got away with murder. Thanks to the Queen County Sheriff ’s Department, Steven Vandekellum never served a day in jail for killing my mother and father. In fact, a week after they died, he was celebrating his birthday in Aruba while I was trying to contact members of my father’s family who hadn’t spoken to him since I’d been born.
“Two thousand dollars. Just to ask a few questions,” she said. I’m sure my eyes must have widened like I had stuck my finger in a light socket. Two thousand dollars to ask a few questions? I couldn’t believe Watkins’s church had that kind of money. I wondered if they put a roll of ten-dollar bills in the bathroom for toilet paper. “Are you saved, Nathan?” Mrs. Parrish asked. I blinked.
“My parents weren’t big on church, ma’am. But I believe there is good and evil. Positive and negative energy, ya know? I believe you do right by people, and it comes back to ya. Same thing if you do wrong,” I said.
“Nah. There ain’t no stippling around the wound. And look at the angle on that wound. Who shoots themselves in the chest from at least five feet away? Nope. Unless he did it with a selfie stick, I’d say somebody shot him. Probably with a .32 or a .38,” Walt said.
Safety is an illusion. There is no safety. Just downtime between tragedies.
“You think you can just talk to me any kind of way? I am a duly appointed officer of the law. You’re just a homeless vet with a fucked-up head. Yeah, I get it. You’re pissed at me about what happened with your parents. Well, I’ve apologized. Time for you to get over it, Nate. Shit happens. One day soon I’m gonna be sheriff. So you might wanna watch how you talk to me,” he said. I put my hands in my pockets. I needed to keep them away from Victor’s neck. “How much they pay you, Victor? How much did it cost for you to shit on that badge and let Vandekellum walk?”
“Mr. Johnson from across the hall has confessed to getting a Viagra from his grandson and, as he put it, ‘giving the lady some attention,’” the nurse said.
Facedown, ass up was apparently the way she liked to fuck. She must have expired while she and Mr. J were getting it on.
Holyyyy shit
thousand dollars,” she said. “I’m in the wrong business,” I said. Lisa Watkins’s words flashed through my mind.
don’t think there is anything more emblematic of the damaged American psyche than a poor white kid insulting a poor Black kid for being poor.
“Nathan, I know your father is being tough on you. He only wants you to be the best person you can be. He thinks violence keeps us from achieving our best possible selves. He always has. Your father is the kindest, most loving man I have ever met. He sees the good in everyone. But I know it’s hard to see the good in people when they are pouring a bottle of piss down
Talk shit. Spit blood.
“Good job. You managed to make it sound semirespectable. I do porn, sugar. I ain’t ashamed. I got a nice condo in LA, and even though that Lexus is a rental, I’ve got a BMW back home. By the end of the year, I’ll be directing my first movie. I’ve already done a few of my own scenes when the director was coming
down from a three-day coke binge. I was being a bitch to you yesterday. I’m sorry. I just didn’t want to deal with another yokel who wanted to tell me how many times he had jerked off to me and Anna Iminya doing a double-dildo scene. I mean, I want you to jerk off and pay for the movies; I just don’t need to hear about it when I’m getting gas or making funeral arrangements. It’s funny. I had forgotten how backward this town was. You tell somebody in LA you do porn, they ask what studio you work for. You tell somebody here, they either wanna bone you in the supermarket parking lot or rub oil on
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But one thing she said bothered me. She said the sheriff had given her the keys to Esau’s house. That went against protocol concerning murders and suicides. All of the deceased’s personal effects are supposed to stay with the body when they go to the ME. In truth, the keys should have been with him when I picked him up. Wow. Improper actions by the Queen County Sheriff ’s Department? Color me astonished.
