The Kindest Lie(67)
The table shook when Gwen dropped that last card, the big joker. Eli howled after their win and rammed his fist into his chest, bellowing a warrior’s chant. After a few more games, Eli took a seat at the bar.
“I’ll have what he’s having,” Ruth said to the female bartender, who had to be freezing in her low-cut tank top. Reindeer antlers sat atop her head. Ruth slid onto the stool next to her brother.
“You still here? Why?” he asked.
“I’m in a bar.” She glanced at her wristwatch. “It’s nowhere near closing time and I want a drink.” The bartender passed her a Bud. Martinis and margaritas were her usual drinks of choice, but on her brother’s turf, she drank what he drank.
The high from his bid whist win had been short-lived, and she watched it wear off like an old Band-Aid that refused to stick. He rubbed his thumbs over the condensation on his beer bottle as if that bottle were his only friend. She wanted to gather him to her and cradle his head against her chest, but she reminded herself this was a grown man, her big brother, not a child.
“Get your drink on, then,” Eli said. “I hope you not a lightweight anymore. We’ll see if you can hold your liquor.”
Glancing down to the other end of the bar, Ruth eyed a bald guy in a tight muscle shirt licking his lips and looking at her like she could be a steak dinner and he hadn’t eaten in weeks. Eli positioned himself to block the man’s view, the way the church mothers draped a handkerchief over a young woman’s lap to cover her legs when she wore a short skirt.
Nursing her beer, Ruth thought about all the brothers out of work, filling their hours here at the bar, some of them lured to criminal enterprises. She remembered Lena talking about gangs planting seeds in Ganton.
Turning to her brother, she said, “I hear gangs are cropping up here doing drug deals and recruiting kids to help them.” Just saying those words made her fearful for her son.
Cocking his head, Eli said, “Who did you hear that from?”
“Lena. She’s worried about Midnight.”
“Look, she don’t know what’s going on. I heard about kids at that gas station over on Main getting hassled. But trust me, nobody’s pushing weight right there in the open. And they ain’t messing with little white boys like Midnight, either.” He chuckled. “Real gangsters know that gas station is hot as hell with cops around somewhere.”
She trusted her brother’s take on it, knowing he’d paid for his own mistake dabbling in drugs. Still, she didn’t want her son anywhere near this kind of activity. “You said kids are getting hassled?”
“Yeah, you got these wannabe gangsters. In this town, there ain’t shit to do sometimes but pretend you the Nino Brown of Ganton.”
“I wonder if Midnight’s been approached.”
“I don’t know, but I do know that if Butch Boyd knew how to raise his kid, he’d stay out of trouble.” The mention of Butch’s name reminded her of that disastrous dinner at Lena’s.
“Surprised Butch isn’t here playing cards, since so many from the plant are here today.”
Disgust crept over Eli’s face. “Better not show his face.”
She wanted to ask her brother about the outrageous claims Butch had made, especially about their grandfather. She had believed in Papa just as she had Santa Claus and the tooth fairy. Even a few years after she discovered both to be mythical, she pretended to still believe, because somehow, she needed larger-than-life legends to steady her in the real world. She wanted to know what Eli thought, but she couldn’t risk him exploding here in public. Not with so many former plant workers nearby.
“Why do you and Butch hate each other so much?”
“A man doesn’t just hate another man for the hell of it. There’s always more to it. That more usually has something to do with a woman. A woman that was his or one he wanted to be his. I know that’s what you’re thinking, but it’s never been like that between Butch and me.”
“Okay, it’s not about a woman. What is it about then?” The last time Ruth remembered the two scuffling had been at a Pratt pool hall as teenagers, arguing over playing heavy metal or hip-hop on the jukebox. But that squabble didn’t last.
Eli ran his hand over the top of his head. “We’re just different and we don’t mix. That’s all I got. Anyhow, don’t want to ruin my buzz.”
“What’s really going on with you, Eli?”
“I’m good.”
“How did that interview go?”
“It went.”
“Does that mean you got the job?”
He tilted the bottle back and took a big gulp. “They said, ‘Can you lift fifty pounds?’ I said, ‘Yes, sir.’ They said, ‘Can you work nights and weekends?’ I said, ‘Yes, sir.’ Then they said they needed somebody who could track inventory online using Microsoft Office applications. ‘Can you do that?’ And, well, that was the end of that. Game over.”
Frustration clouded his face, resignation pressing his shoulders until they slumped. The same set of grandparents had raised them both in the same house. The same Ganton schools educated her and Eli, and yet her flower bloomed while his never made it beyond a bud.
“You have to reframe your thinking. Even if you don’t meet every requirement, walk into those interviews like you’re at the spades table about to run a Boston on everybody. You need a winner’s mindset.”