An American Marriage(63)

I almost didn’t recognize Roy’s house without the Chrysler parked in the yard. I circled the block twice, confused. The Huey Newton chairs on the porch convinced me that I was in the right place. As I pulled in close to the house, my bumper kissing the porch, a bank of floodlights hit me, and I shielded my eyes like I was staring into the sun.

“Hello,” I called. “It’s me. Andre Tucker. I’m here for Roy Junior.” The neighbors played music, zydeco, loud and jaunty. I walked slowly, like I was worried that someone might want to shoot me if I made any sudden moves.

Roy Senior stood behind a screen door, wearing a striped butcher’s apron. “Come on in, Andre,” he said. “You eat yet? I’m fixing to make some salmon croquettes.”

I shook his hand and he led me to the built-on living room I remembered from the last time I was here. The hospital bed was gone, and the green recliner looked new.

“I’m here to pick up Roy, you know.”

Big Roy walked toward the center of the house with me close behind. In the kitchen he readjusted his apron strings, knotting them around his barrel torso. “Little Roy is gone.”

“Gone where?”

“Atlanta.”

I sat down at the kitchen table. “What?”

“You hungry?” Big Roy asked. “I could fix you some salmon croquettes.”

“He’s gone to Atlanta? When did he leave?”

“A while ago. Let me get you something to eat. Then we can talk about the details.” He handed me a glass of purple Kool-Aid, which tasted like summertime.

“Thank you, sir. I appreciate your hospitality, but can you give me the broad outline? Roy is gone to Atlanta? How? Plane? Train? Automobile?”

He pondered this like a multiple-choice test as he cranked the lid off of a can. Finally he said, “Automobile.”

“Whose car?”

“Mine.”

I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Nope.”

I took my phone out of my pocket. We were probably a hundred miles from the nearest cell tower, but I had to try.

“Cell phones don’t work so well out here. All the kids want them for Christmas, but it’s a waste of money.”

I checked the screen. My battery was good to go, but there were no signal bars. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being set up. On the wall was mounted a green phone, rotary model; I nodded toward it. “May I?”

Crumbling Ritz crackers, he slumped his shoulders and said, “They cut it off yesterday. With Olive gone, it has been hard making ends meet.”

I was quiet as he worked over the little bowl, cracking an egg and then stirring the mixture with slow, careful strokes, like he was afraid to hurt it.

“I’m sorry to hear this,” I said, embarrassed for even asking about the phone. “I’m sorry to hear it has been so hard.”

He sighed again. “I get by, mostly.”

I sat down at the kitchen table and watched Big Roy cook. The years had clearly grabbed him by the throat. He was the same age as my own father, give or take, but his back was stooped and wrinkles pulled at the corners of his mouth. This is the face of a man who has loved too hard.

I compared him with my own father, vain and handsome, complexion as smooth as glass. Carlos’s signature gold chain was sort of Saturday Night Fever, at least that’s how I always thought of it. But maybe he treasured it as his mother’s gift of protection. I wasn’t sure yet what it meant to me.

Plunking the fish patties into a skillet of hot grease, Big Roy said, “You’re going to have to stay the night. Gets dark so early in the winter. It’s too late to get back on the road. Besides, you don’t look like you got another seven hours in you.”

I crossed my arms on the table to make a nest for my heavy head. “What is going on?” I asked, not really expecting an answer.

Finally, the simple meal was served. Salmon croquettes and a side of sliced carrots. The croquettes were edible, if not good, but I didn’t have much appetite. Big Roy ate his entire meal with a short fork, even the carrots. He smiled at me from time to time, but I didn’t quite feel welcome. After dinner, I washed the dishes while he carefully poured the used cooking grease into a tin jar. We dried the dishes and put them away tag-team style, with me pausing every few minutes to see if a signal had somehow made it to my phone.

“What time did Roy leave?” I asked.

“Last night.”

“So . . .” I said, doing the math.

“He made it to Atlanta right about the time you were leaving.”

Once everything was clean, dried, put away, and wiped down, Big Roy asked me if I drank Johnnie Walker.

“Yes, sir,” I said. “Might as well.”

At last we settled ourselves in the den, glasses in hand. I sat on the firm sofa, and he chose the big leather recliner.

“When Olive first died, I couldn’t bring myself to lay in my own bed. For a month, I slept in this chair, leaned it back and put the footrest up. Pillow, blanket. That’s how I spent the whole night.”

I nodded, picturing it, remembering him at the funeral, destroyed but determined. “Next to him,” Celestial had said, “I felt like a fraud.” I didn’t tell her, but Big Roy provoked the opposite reaction in me. I felt his emotions, deeper than the grave, and I understood his hopelessness, too, his longing for a woman you could never hold.