Blacktop Wasteland(89)

“What am I supposed to do with that, Bug, huh? You want to me to make you feel better? Tell you never mind what’s happened, you are a good father and a good husband? Because I can’t do that,” Kia said. She squeezed Darren’s hand. Beauregard moved to Darren’s bedside and touched his other hand.

“No. No more lies. All I gotta do is look around and see what kind of man I really am. Ariel is dating some fucked-up gangster wannabe. Javon had to kill a man on his own front step. Darren laying here fighting for his life. You’ve had to watch it all go down. Kelvin is…” Beauregard’s voice cracked.

“What about Kelvin?” Kia asked. Beauregard didn’t answer.

“I can’t keep doing this to y’all,” he said. He walked over to Kia’s chair and put his hands on the backrest. He watched the muscles in her back roil under her shirt. He could feel her body stiffen even though he wasn’t touching her.

“Boonie’s sitting on ten rolls of platinum for you. He gonna sell them and split it between you and Ariel. He gonna take over the note on the garage too. When I get settled I’ll send you some more money,” Beauregard said.

He moved to the door. His hand had fallen on the handle when he heard Kia’s voice.

“So, you just running, is that it?”

Beauregard stopped in his tracks. The handle in his hand felt as heavy as a bag of bricks. He licked his lips. He spoke to her without turning around.

“You told me to go.”

“I know what I said. You ain’t gotta tell me what I said.”

“What do you want from me, then? Tell me what you want, Kia.”

“It ain’t just about me or you, Bug,” Kia said.

Beauregard laid his head against the door. Its polished wood surface was cool against his skin. He turned the handle a quarter inch. The door opened a crack.

“I know you telling yourself what you doing is for the best, but is it? Or are you just taking the easy way out?” Kia asked.

“You think this is easy for me? You think walking away from you and the boys is easy for me?” Beauregard asked.

“Look, I can’t make no promises about you and me. But if you stopped doing gangsta shit I’d never keep you from the boys. You walk out that door and I won’t have to. They’ll hate you all on their own. I can promise you that,” Kia said.

“I can live with them hating me if I know they’re safe. If they around me they won’t be,” Beauregard said.

“You really believe that? Then do what your Daddy couldn’t. Stay. Change,” Kia said. Beauregard opened the door. The hallway was full of doctors and nurses hovering around all kinds of equipment. A few patients tethered to IVs were moving past the staff like forlorn zombies.

“I love you, Kia,” Beauregard said. He stepped out into the hallway.

“Bug!” Kia shouted. He whirled around, afraid something had happened to Darren. Kia was standing near the bed with her arms crossed across her chest.

“If you’re gonna go … do you have to go right now? Like, right this minute? Jean’s bringing Javon up here in a little while. They let him go. I don’t think they gonna charge him. He’s been asking for you,” she said. Beauregard stepped back into the room. Kia stared at him hard. Her eyes shined with a light born of fury and despair. He didn’t know what to say. He waited for his father’s voice to share some pithy words of wisdom but that wraith no longer spoke to him. He was on his own.

“You sure?” Beauregard asked.

“No. But I don’t want to be here alone anymore,” Kia said.

Beauregard went back to his chair. He sat down and enveloped Darren’s small hand in his own. Kia sat down and did the same thing on the other side of the bed.

The dying light of day cast their shadows against the far wall. Their silhouettes overlapped, entwined like lovers. Silence filled the spaces between them. Kia lowered the railing and lay across the foot of Darren’s bed. Beauregard studied the back of her head. The gentle slope of her neck.

After a while she let out a sigh.

“You’re never really gonna change, are you, Bug,” she said. The statement came out flat and listless. Some might say hopeless.

Beauregard closed his eyes. Faces rushed at him out of the darkness.

Red Navely and his brothers.

Ronnie and Reggie.

Lazy.

Burning Man.

Eric.

Kelvin.

A dozen other faces floated up from the river of his memories, their mouths slack, their eyes glazed over. Their last words wasted on pleas of mercy. Their last breaths becoming a death rattle in their throats. Other faces joined them, accompanied by the squeal of tires and the shriek of bullets.

Wives he had made widows. Mothers who waited in vain for their sons to come home. Sons who would never see their fathers again. All those faces, all those lives, nothing more than earth, ashes and rust now.

Finally, he whispered, “I don’t know if I can.”





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS



It is said that writing is a lonely endeavor. This is only partly true. I have been blessed to be surrounded by an incredible group of friends and family and fellow writers who have supported me, cajoled me and when needed given me a swift kick in the rear during this journey.

First and foremost I’d like to thank my agent, Josh Getzler, and all the great folks at HG Literary. Josh was the first person to believe in Blacktop Wasteland, and he has always been its fiercest champion. I’m forever grateful I stopped and talked to you in that hotel hallway in St. Petersburg.