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  (23)

  It was a pretty simple plan, really, as I figure it’s best not to complicate things. I was actually starting to feel excited about it. A little scared, yeah, but nothing like Korea. That was fear, all right. This, well, it was really about being clever. It was the same as convincing someone to buy a used car they neither wanted nor needed, make them think it was just the thing for them. This was about making things look one way when they were another. Emotional sleight-of-hand.

  As we lay in bed, Nancy hardly able to move from the beating she took, we gradually put it together. I had some of it, but she had some of it too.

  “How often does he drink?”

  “How often is it night?”

  “Does he always get stone drunk?”

  “Always.”

  “Here’s what I’m thinking. He gets stone drunk, comes home, and we let him do that a couple of days, and you got to do your best to avoid him.”

  “I always do my best. Maybe I could sleep in the office at the drive-in.”

  “Can’t let him suspect anything. We let him come home a couple of nights, get in a pattern, and the next night, when he goes out, I park somewhere down the road and come over. We put his fishing gear handy in the house where he can’t see it. Then we wait for him to come home. I’ll wait in the closet with a blackjack.”

  “You’ll need more than a blackjack. He’s big, Ed. Really big, and stout. We were out at a bar one night, and someone looked at me in a way he didn’t like, and he fought that man and his two buddies, went through them like shit through a goose. He’s tough, all right.”

  “I’ll bring a crowbar or something. I’ll wait in the bedroom closet, and when the time is right, I’ll come out of it and hit him in the back of the head. We’ll have the lightbulb out overhead, so he tries to switch it on, he can’t, and then when I come out of the closet, I’ll go for the home run. He’s down and not dead, we got to have a plastic bag handy to put over his head, try and take the air out of him.”

  “Yeah, and who’s going to hold him down while we put a plastic bag over his head?”

  “A good lick from a crowbar ought to help us with that. Thing is, we don’t want him too banged up. It’s got to look like it was the car accident.”

  “All right, but swing hard.”

  “We get him smothered, and then we put him in his car along with the fishing gear, you see. You got to drive the car out to the creek, and I’ll follow. Your story is that he left the next morning, early, to go fishing. What we do is we put him behind the wheel, set his car up so it runs into the bridge, breaks the barriers, goes over into the deep part of the creek.”

  “What then?”

  “We go home and wait till someone discovers him. It might take a while, but we wait. Stay away from each other during that time.”

  “I don’t like that.”

  “Me either, baby, but we got to say later, when we’re together, that we met when you bought a used car, and later, when your husband died, I saw you out at the drive-in, and there was a kind of spark, and we connected.”

  “Damn convenient.”

  “We got to wait at least a month. It’ll seem less convenient then.”

  “A month?”

  “Yeah, because you’re not going to file for the insurance right away. You’re going to be too distraught. That way it doesn’t look like you’re trying to clean up, shows you’re in no hurry. A month or so later, you apply for the insurance for the accident, and then we’ve got our nest egg. We can see each other. Someone might not like it, but by then he’ll be gone. Have him cremated. Don’t want some wise-ass insurance investigator having him dug up, checking out this and that, comparing what did him in to how the accident happened and so on. Have him cremated right away.”

  “Do they do that here.”

  “One place and one place only. The colored funeral home on Elgin.”

  “Oh, hell, Ed. I don’t know. I mean, it’s one thing to kill him, but having him cremated in a colored funeral home, that looks like I don’t care enough to have him cremated in a white funeral home.”

  “There isn’t one.”

  “I know, but…”

  I felt a snake of pain crawl around inside of me, and for a moment I wanted to tell her that she was a lot closer to colored than she thought, and then I thought about how she was when she was in bed when she wasn’t broken and how much money that drive-in and cemetery could make, and about that empire, and I thought too about what my mother said about how I should be doing better, not having any color barriers on me, and I thought about my sister and some money for college, how she was smart and how she would have a real shot, and I caught my breath gently and just kept holding her.

  When you’re sniffing at true success, you can manage somehow not to smell the shit on the other side of the fence. I had learned that from Dave.

  I said, “Listen here. We’ll have him cremated in Tyler. I bet they have a crematorium there. I’ll find out.”

  “Okay.”

  “Not one, then it’s the funeral home on Elgin.”

  “You know, I don’t mind it’s a colored place, but I’m thinking others will look at it, decide I just wanted to get rid him, down to the point of using that funeral home that a white person might not use.”

  “Well, I die, you can have me cremated there. I don’t mind.”

  “Don’t even say that.”

  “Here’s the thing. We got to really play it cool until you get the insurance money. You want to call me before we do this, call me when there’s no chance he’ll hear you. He’s home, I don’t care if he’s sleeping, you go over to the drive-in and call from the office. No one’s there during the day, right?”

  “Walter sometimes. He does odd jobs. But mostly, yeah, I can do that.”

  “Let me know when he’s gotten comfortable being home, and then we’ll do it.”

  (24)

  Nancy left shortly thereafter, said she would go to the drive-in, wait until he had slept it off. He’d sleep late, and he’d be apologies and sweetness, wanting her to fix him some breakfast, and she planned on doing it. And then he’d want to take her to bed, sore as she was, she said, and just the thought of it made me want to get my blackjack and pistol and walk in on him and shoot him until I had to reload. Beat him with the blackjack even if he was dead. But I had to grit my teeth, bide my time, and try and think about something else.

  After she left, I had some coffee, too much of it, and then phoned work, told Dave I needed a day off to get some things done. He wasn’t too crazy about that, working the place alone. He’d rather just take his cut as owner than walk around all day. He’d sell a car now and then to keep his hand in, and he was good at it, but walking the lot all day, he was too fat and his feet were bad.

  “Look, I maybe can come in this afternoon, two or three hours before closing.”

  The lot was sometimes open until seven p.m., us trying to catch late sales, people who could only come by after work.

  “I guess it’s all right.”

  “I haven’t taken a day off in ages. Left a little early a couple of times, but I’m selling cars for you just fine. Because of me, you got some serious take-home.”

  There was a silent moment of consideration and then Dave said, “All right, then, but come as early as you can. I’ve been a little off my feed lately.”

  “Sure. Hey, Dave, I didn’t try and fake you out with a sick claim. I just need to get some stuff done.”

  “Good enough,” he said.

  I hadn’t wanted to call in sick because I thought someone might see me around town, say something to Dave, and then it would be worse. It was better he thought I was just taking care of personal business, which, in fact, I was.

  I drove over to the hardware store, bought myself a nice, heavy crowbar, but one of the smaller ones, so I could carry it easy enough, swing it without too much work. Still, you wouldn’t have wanted to catch the business end of it if someone was swinging it at you.

/>   I had my laundry with me, and I took it to the cleaners and checked it in, said I could use a couple plastic laundry bags.

  They were a little big to use, if your plan was to smother someone, but I thought I could put one inside the other, fold them down at the open edge and make them easier to handle, easier to fit over an incapacitated man’s head. It would hold in some of the blood from a head wound too. And that made me think of another thing.

  I drove back to the hardware store, and me and the guy there joked how I was getting old, forgetting things, because I told him I needed a large painter’s tarp, and I even bought paint and brushes to go with it. That meant I’d have to paint my bathroom or something, have something to show if I was asked, because I might be. Someone might say they saw me and her together and why did I buy a crowbar, and a tarp might even come up if you had some diligent police officer checking around for things like that; it could happen. I could point to the paint in my storage closet and the freshly painted bathroom and say, “Because of that. I got a tarp so I could drape it over the floor and the tub, not get paint everywhere, and I got the crowbar to pry off the door frame so I could replace it and paint it. But I decided that I could clean it and not have to replace it. Didn’t need to replace it. Cleaning and painting were fine enough.”

  I was thinking it was just the kind of stupid thing a guy didn’t know better might do. Some home-repair guy who decided he couldn’t carpenter enough to replace the door trim so in the end, he just went with it. And I could also point to a few places where it was cracked around near the door hinge to show why I’d thought it needed replacing, even if in the end I didn’t.

  “Where’s the tarp, Edwards?” the cops might ask, and I could say: “Tarp? Oh, yeah, the tarp. Well, hell, the dump.” And it would be there too. I could soak it down in the tub first, clean it up a little, then take it to the dump, that way if they found it, I would have cleaned the blood off of it.

  You see, I was thinking things through pretty good. I could use that tarp to put over the bed so as not to get blood on the sheets and mattress, because something like that, it would be a bitch to replace and not have some cop wonder why there was a new mattress on the bed.

  Frank comes in and tries the light switch, it doesn’t work, and Nancy says, “Just come to bed, Frank, we’ll get a fresh bulb in the morning.” He would know his way enough in the dark to start there, and then I’d come out of the closet, not throwing shadows with the light out, and I’d hit him. Blood sprayed, the floor and walls could be cleaned, but that mattress, that was a whole different sort of pickle.

  Yeah. I was thinking good now. I let those thoughts ramble about in my skull for a moment.

  The more I thought about killing him, more certain I was I could do it. I had once killed a Korean soldier with the butt of a rifle, and that had been close and goddamn personal. I never mentioned that. I always talked about the ones I had killed from afar. I didn’t talk about it because I could still see his face, the way his eyes froze in his head and he twitched and then stopped twitching.

  Sometimes, I went to bed, closed my eyes, I saw him again. I killed him over and over.

  I kept telling myself that it had been him or me, and I believed it. This time, though, would be different.

  I’d be killing for girl and profit, a somewhat more violent and bloodier version of the American dream.

  (25)

  I stopped by the library, had the librarian show me where they kept the yearly promotion books for the colleges and junior colleges in Texas. The librarian was a pretty thing who chewed on a pencil eraser from time to time, sticking the pencil in her mouth the way you would a cigarette.

  I found a long table to sit at and looked through the campus books, picked out the ones on East Texas, and started there. It said what the tuition was and what kind of campus housing they had, and an idea of what it would cost if you lived off campus.

  Melinda would prefer off campus, so I looked at that first. When I got through looking at the prices for tuition, books—which was estimated, depending on classes—and housing, it was quite a bit.

  I looked then at the on-campus housing. It was only marginally better, but if I put down a payment, paid the rest out by the semester, had the drive-in going, maybe buried a few dogs (and I intended to bury them for real), I could probably afford it.

  Course, to do it the way I wanted to do it, me and Nancy would have to get married, so I’d have direct access, just in case she decided to lord it over me. That was a funny thing to think about a woman I was willing to kill for, but I wasn’t fooling myself any. The businesses were a big part of it, and Nancy was no angel.

  I decided Kilgore College might be the best bet. It was close by and I could see Melinda pretty often. When it came to registration, no one would know her father was black, because I knew someone who could fix the birth certificate if she needed it, and I presumed she would. For a hundred dollars, he had made my certificate white as snow. The man who fixed it was dark as coal and called himself my cousin on account of he knew I was not pure white. He thought it was funny. His hand was steady and he had the equipment to make it look just right. He was also someone I trusted, a friend, because when I was having the certificate redone, we ended up visiting, found that we liked each other. From time to time I went there to see him, there being on the dark side of town, as he called it. I went there and we drank beer and talked. He never came to see me. Where I lived wasn’t fancy, but it was the white side of town, and for him to come there, well, it just wouldn’t look right.

  I brought all the books back, asked the librarian if she knew a way I could find out about places where a drunk could dry out. I told her I had a friend.

  She thought a bit, put a pencil in her mouth and chewed on the eraser some more, then went and found me a big book with all manner of listings and addresses in it.

  I found one in Dallas for drying out. They called it something fancy, but it was really a drunk farm. It was expensive, but again, I thought about the money. Nancy had told me how much the insurance policy was for, and death by accident doubled it. It was a lot. Just a piece of it, a small piece, could send Melinda to college and my mama to that place to dry out.

  I might even get Mama a real house with a white picket fence and dog in the yard. Hire someone to do windows, shovel up the dog shit, and mow the lawn.

  Yeah. I was starting to see myself as living the kind of life my father never could have. It wouldn’t have mattered what kind of brains he had, a black man in the South, it wasn’t going to happen. And up north, my brother, well, he was still a black man, and he could do all right, but he’d always do what a black man could do, not what a white man could.

  (26)

  When I knew Melinda would be close to getting off work, I drove over to Mama’s house trailer and got out and walked up to the door. I could hear the air conditioner running. I knocked. It took a long time for Mom to answer. When she opened the door, she smiled.

  “Baby boy,” she said. “Come in.”

  I went inside and we embraced. “Thought I’d come before Melinda got home, see you, and then I’m going to try and talk my little sister into going to get ice cream. I can bring you something back.” I said it that way to cut off any possibility she might be entertaining the idea of going with us. I didn’t want her to. I wanted to visit with Melinda alone. Besides, unless there was liquor involved, Mama seldom went out.

  She pursed her lips and thought for a moment. “Well, some chocolate. Two scoops of anything as long as one of them is chocolate.”

  “Cones don’t survive long drives. How about I get you a pint of something, chocolate something or another.”

  “That sounds good. I don’t mind if it’s got pecans in it or some kind of nut.”

  Her hands were shaking, but I thought her complexation looked better than last time. She hadn’t combed her hair in a few days and she was wearing a loose muumuu that made her look a little like an animal poking its head out of the top of
a tent, but she was certainly steady-enough-looking. She had on pink house shoes and was carrying a pack of cigarettes in one hand and a box of kitchen matches in the other. She walked into the kitchen, set the matches and cigarettes on the kitchen table, and put on the coffeepot. “You got time for a cup, right?”

  “Sure. Listen, Mama. I think I might be working on a deal that could get me better off and, in turn, make you and Melinda better off.”

  She looked at me out of the corner of her eye. “How much better off?”

  “A lot.”

  “What you got in mind?”

  “Can’t say right now, just in case it falls through. But it could be like you want, me making some real money.”

  “I see,” she said. I couldn’t figure if she was happy her lifelong dream of seeing me embrace whiteness and big money might happen or if she was thinking what she might do with that money. I voted on the latter.

  I don’t know why I bothered to try and please her. It was like I had some kind of twitch I couldn’t prevent.

  We sat in chairs at the kitchen and waited on the coffee.

  “I think that’s great. Can you tell me anything?”

  “Not really, but it looks good.”

  “I married your father because I thought he was the handsomest man I ever saw. Big and strong. Masculine. But he had a temper, and him being colored, well, I put a brand on myself, and he had limitations financially. When we split, and I moved here, I thought I could do better, but I couldn’t. I was on the drink, you know?”

  She said that like I might have no idea.

  The coffee got ready and we had a cup. Mama told me Melinda was thinking they might brighten the place up with new curtains and better lighting.

  The only thing that could brighten up that shit hole was a house fire.

  I got up and poured us another cup of coffee, sat down with it, put her cup in front of her. She looked into it as if its contents might contain prophecy, like she was divining chicken guts or reading lines in a person’s palm.