“Come on, man—one more. Come on, baby, juss one more time.” Sammy guided the bar as it slowly moved downward, his massive cupped hands as if in offering under the knurled metal. The bar rested across Jay’s chest for less than an instant, and then Jay drove the weight upward, his arms quivering slightly as the bar hesitated in mid-stroke, Sammy’s two index fingers assisting fractionally. “That’s it, come on, baby, you got it, you got it,” he said again. With a last reserve of strength, Jay forced the bar to the full extension of his arms. Sammy immediately gripped it and settled it with a loud clank onto the steel bench rack, the six big cast-iron plates rattling against each other.
“Man, I think you stronger now than before. Damn, that’s seven reps. What you weighing these days?”
“I’m back around one-eighty,” said Jay as he lay prone and panting on the weight bench.
“Man, I don’t want to hear about it. You lifting almost as much as me, and I got close to sixty pounds on you.”
“When I boxed I didn’t lift that much—Pete wouldn’t let me—but it feels good now.”
Jay popped up off the bench and stretched his arms out behind him, enjoying the burn in his muscles. His wounded arm was finally normal again. Looking around he was relieved the Cyclone gym hadn’t decorated for Christmas. It was the time of year when he felt he didn’t fit anywhere, a time for families, not orphans. It brought back bittersweet memories of the Northeast and his mother, or at least some vague early memory of Christmas there. He wasn’t sure how much of it was really his and how much of it he’d invented as a child. His grandfather had said that Christmas wasn’t his people’s holiday—wouldn’t have a thing to do with it. And now, with him gone, there would never be anyone to ask. It also dredged up those leaden holidays at the orphanage, or his Christmases as a young man when he waited the time out alone in diners or cheap rooms. It was not his favorite couple weeks.
“You ready?” he said to Sammy.
“Naw, man, enough is enough.”
“You sure?”
“I gettin’ soft in my old age. You must have real strong ligaments.” Sammy shook his head. “You too strong for your own good.”
“Shall we hit the heavy bag for a while?”
“Let’s shower and head down to Felix’s for some of that crazy hop water they got down there. You know, that stuff that foam up, come in those little glasses? bubbles all running around inside? all you got to do is ask for it? We’ll play some soul music on the juke. Man, I got to hear that Bobby Womack—I love that shit. I got a CD in the Benz now, but it sound best at Felix’s on a Saturday afternoon. We get Felix to turn it up for us. I wanna show you his place. An icon ‘round this neighborhood.” He paused. “Where you park?”
“On Edes around Ninety-sixth Street.”
“Then you walk right by. Blue neon say Lounge?”
“I’ve noticed it before. A beautiful old sign.”
“Wait till you see the inside. Oh man, I love this time a year—and I got me the day and the night off, too.”
“Where’s Jolene?”
“Didn’t I tell you? Jolene and the kids on the plane to Acapulco yesterday. I couldn’t stay down there no full two weeks; Nick need my ass at the room, and I get all bored lyin’ on a beach anyhow, so I go down later and join ‘em for Christmas. Can you believe that shit? Acapulco for Christmas. But she want it so bad, I say, honey, you want an A-capulco Christmas, you got your sweet self an A-capulco Christmas. Man, I got to haul all the gifts down there on an air-o-plane. And I’m talking these two monster motherfucking suitcases. That why I not working out too much today—got to save my strength for them suitcases. But today, today baby, daddy gonna drink some beer and rye whiskey.”
“Nice to see you in such a good mood.”
“Christmastime, man. I got that holiday spirit pumpin’ my veins. And thanks to you I don’t got to struggle my ass no more. Thanks to you, this the best year of my life, and my family’s life. Man, I set up college funds for all my kids a month ago. I didn’t tell you . . . I done sold all my stock.”
He watched Jay for his reaction. “Not ‘cause I don’t believe in your ass, you know I do. I done it ‘cause I don’t need no more money, I make enough, and I didn’t wanna worry no more about it.” He put his arm around Jay. “Man, I knew you was good luck the minute I laid eyes on your ass. I never told you, but I borrow that first twenty large I put in LiveCell, Jolene screaming at me when she find out. ‘How we ever gonna pay this back?’ she said. ‘Are you out of your damn mind?’ And now—I her fucking hero, and it all ‘cause a you.”
Jay looked embarrassed.
“Man, you juss shrivel all up anybody say they love you. You quiet again today. Few months ago, you start to defrost, now you all on quiet again. Jay, you can’t let those motherfuckers bug you. I been readin’ the papers, and I dig they after your ass again, but I telling you man, those fucks will never rest till they own it all. They coded to do juss that. They got to make sure we all juss as fucking miserable as they are. They can’t rest till they make everybody on earth miserable.”
Sammy studied him again. “Maybe you juss sell it to them? They ain’t gonna rest otherwise, you and I both know that. And you got to ask yourself why? I mean, you give the world this beautiful thing, and now everybody talk all over for free, but they got to fuck with it.” He examined his friend. “Come on, man. We don’ worry about it none today. We go talk with my man Felix. We let those beer angels soothe your weary mind. And Felix got a holiday special you got to try. Let’s shower up.”
They walked out of the free weight room into the boxing part of the gym. As they headed for the locker room everyone greeted Sammy and gave Jay the nod.
“You change a lot of people’s lives around here. They too shy to tell you, but they tell me.” He paused. “Man, there you go again, looking all funny. We got to find you a good woman, get on with the defrost.”
“Sammy, I’m fine,” he said.
“Yeah, you fine, I know you fine, I juss wanna see a smile on my main man.” They stripped down for their showers. “You gonna take some steam today?”
“You?”
“If you want. Man, I all ready right now for my holiday afternoon.”
“Let’s just shower and head to the bar then. My treat.”
Sammy glared at him. “No way. This my afternoon, my place, my treat. Right?”
Jay nodded, and finally smiled at his friend. Sammy winked, grabbed a clean towel and headed for the showers.
“ . . . across a hundred and tenth street . . .” Sammy sang quietly along with Bobby Womack. Then at the uhh-wu-wu-wu part he allowed his voice to rise above the volume of the jukebox. Nobody minded in the least.
Entering Felix’s Lounge for the first time was like entering a still photograph from a book, Lost Barrooms from the Late 1930s. Of course in the thirties the windows wouldn’t have had iron grates, and the door, now protected by steel mesh, would have opened with a push—no wait until being recognized and buzzed into the place. The bar itself had remained the same though, with its horseshoe shape at the entrance-end and its thick curved mahogany lip, the top a sanded and alcohol-stained teak. The same huge mirror corralled by polished wood, a graceful arch with vertical amber lights resembling Grecian pillars, sentinels of the liquor-bottle forest. Mahogany booths and tables lined the right wall beyond the horseshoe section. The cornice of a rusty and tarnished tin ceiling was hung with paper streamers and oversized Christmas decorations. In the center of the bar was a massive punch bowl surrounded by mugs as newborns surround a mother, next to this a red plastic ladle, and on the red glass bowl and mugs, white silk-screened script that read Tom and Jerry.
Sammy’d started with one, a Christmas tradition, Tyrone adding rum and boiling water to the egg mixture ladled from the punch bowl, topping it with a pfft of whipped cream and a shake of nutmeg. Since Tyrone had inherited the lounge twenty-four years ago, most of his patrons called him Felix though no one remembered the original Felix. When Sammy introduced him to Jay, he shook Jay’s hand with great seriousness and told him his money was no good in his place; whatever he wanted was on the house. Sammy told Felix he’d have to wait in line.
Sammy emptied his Tom and Jerry, got up and walked to the front door, signaled Felix to buzz it open. Holding the door with his foot to keep it from springing shut, he leaned forward and looked down Edes Street in the same direction Jay had parked the Cutlass. Then he came back and sat down again.
“They gone,” he said to no one in particular.
“What’s at?” said Felix from down the bar.
“Man, you running craps in the back, you peddling crack, you serving minors?”
“Sammy, what you talking about?”
“You know anything ‘bout a chocolate sedan with two ugly white boys inside? Look like an unmarked.”
“Never seen it before.”
“Man, juss look wrong to me, but they gone now. Look like some stray vice boys or some shit like that.” Felix went back to stacking glasses.
“You want another Jerry?” said Sammy. Jay told him one was enough. “You right,” he said quietly so Felix wouldn’t hear. “They lovely, but they awful sweet, and I like sweet.” Then, calling down to the old bartender, “Felix, my man, set us up a couple of frosties.”
“Blue Ribbon?”
“What else.”
“Shorts?”
“Now you talking, brother.”
“Calvert?”
Sammy just grinned. He turned to Jay. “So what’s going on? I know there something. Company stuff, the bad press? There something else? You got woman troubles? I hate to see you with the blues at Christmastime.”
“I’m fine,” he said as Sammy searched him. “Truly, I’m okay.” Jay watched Felix pouring the drafts, then back at Sammy. “This is a wonderful place. Thanks for bringing me here.”
Sammy placed a hand on his shoulder. “You need something, all you got to do is ask, but you know that.”
As they talked and drank, customers began to drift in, the door buzzer heralding each fresh group or single—that vague nudge of cool air moving down the bar—almost everyone already gussied up for the holidays though Christmas was still a week and a couple of days away. The bar began to fill; another bartender arrived to help Felix pour drinks, and a waitress began working the tables. Only a few patrons seemed surprised to see Jay on a stool beside Sammy. Many came over to say Hey to Sammy, ask about Jolene, the children, and meet Jay. There was a lot of laughter, and after a couple hours Sammy leaned over to his friend and said, “Baby, you finally on defrost.”
“I’m better, thanks to you.”
“You really can’t tell Sammy what’s bugging you?”
The bar was busy now, which offered its own kind of privacy. Jay felt he should tell Sammy something; he knew Sammy would be hurt if he didn’t.
“I’m worried about my people.”
“LiveCell?”
“Someone tried to blow up one of our factories.”
“Motherfucker.”
“It was a paid job. Untraceable. Two of my people interrupted the man in the middle of the night. It was a fluke they happened to be there.”
“Damn, man. Now they trying to burn your ass out.” He shook his head in sadness. “You use David Artega?”
“Unofficially, but the thing was confused. My people dropped the arsonist off outside San Francisco General. A man was admitted that night with broken ribs and internal injuries, but he disappeared sometime before morning. The ER doctor assured Artega the guy must’ve had help leaving. We have the wallet, but the information was a dead end, an alias. He even used a different alias at the hospital. Artega thinks he was out of the country by that afternoon. My people also took ten thousand off him, which he told them was half the job, but Artega thought fifty-thousand was probably the figure.”
“Why didn’t your people turn him over to Artega?”
“I don’t think either of them have much faith in the police, and though Deirdre saw Artega once, it’s not as if she knows him. And you’d have to meet Luke to understand. It takes some people a long time to believe in a good cop.”
“I hear you. David didn’t clue me in.”
“I asked him to tell no one.” Jay drained his beer. “Let me buy you and Felix a drink. Let’s get back in the spirit.”
“Man, glad you told me. I understand better. I told you man, you making some waves; you changing things for them big money boys. I love you for it brother, and I respect your ass all the more. But, baby, you can’t let this shit get you down—it bound to happen. They bound to try and set you back, but I know you, you keep coming. Man, I wish I coulda seen you in the ring, I bet you never quit coming.”
Jay didn’t tell him about the death threats. There’d been a second one since he’d mentioned the first to Mary. The second was identical: desist or die across plain white paper. He hadn’t told Detective Artega either. Jay didn’t take the threats seriously—how could he? It seemed too stupid, too amateurish. The people after him were not amateurs. They had every possible resource available and no one watching them. They could do what they liked as long as they kept the truth out of the media, and therefore from the public. He understood that the rules were inequitable.
Felix was pleased that Jay wanted to buy him a drink. He opened one of the latched doors and reached far into the cooler, pulled out a big brown bottle, brought it over with a glass to their section of the bar.
“This the Xingu beer, the black beer, come all the way from the Brazil jungle. Make a man strong where it counts.” He poured it out—it looked like oil—and raised the glass. “Thank you, Jay. Merry Christmas.”
They all raised their beverages and toasted each other, Felix draining off half his glass and humming his approval loudly.
“Felix, I don’t know how you can drink that skanky shit,” said Sammy.
“You juss don’t know what’s good.”
Sammy pretended to strangle himself with one hand, his tongue sticking out. He started chuckling. “Man, you juss like that shit ‘cause it got snakes and crocodiles on the label. Remind you a your two ex-wives.” Sammy slapped his thigh now, winked at Jay.
Felix said, “Even at Christmastime he got to fun an old man.”
“You ain’t that old.”
“Jay, how old you think I am?”
Jay examined him. “Mid-fifties?”
“I be sixty-seven in June,” he said with pride.
“You serious?” said Sammy, no longer laughing. “Man, I had no idea you that old. Maybe I should start drinking that shit.”
“You juss keep drinkin’ what you drinkin’,” Felix said, grinned at Jay, and went off to serve a customer.
“That Felix too much. I remember him from when I’s a kid, coming in here after school when it empty, juss the regulars nursing hangovers, and he give us pop—but I never figure how old he must be. He never change. Only his wives.” He looked around. “Man, I got to go play that juke again.” Sammy sauntered over to the throbbing jukebox and began feeding it dollars.
Jay did feel a little better. The joy and faith in Sammy relaxed him, and he decided his premonitions might be wrong. After all, it was Christmastime, a time of goodwill and fellowship, not a time of fear. Everyone in the bar exuded positive feelings. Why couldn’t he? These past months he’d fought an underlying uneasiness that wouldn’t rest, and he worried he was putting his people at risk. Was he pushing too hard, too quickly? Had he calculated everything carefully enough? Had he underestimated the viciousness of the opposition?
After the bomb attempt he’d called a special department heads meeting and cautioned everyone that working at LiveCell might be a lot riskier than he’d foreseen. He’d asked each of them how they felt and what they wanted to do.
Jimmy Hakken spoke first. He said, “My crew are ready for anything—period. We’re on constant alert. Got sentries posted around the clock. No one is blowing up my factory—period.”
Jay knew that in Jimmy Hakken he’d fostered something that was getting out of hand, yet he also sensed how content Hakken was, as if he’d lived his whole life to fill this role, and if anyone knew the importance of that, it was Jay. However, though Jay would never admit it to anyone, Hakken’s devout loyalty made him very uncomfortable.
Deirdre, though she’d absorbed the brunt of the physical attacks against the company, said, “Like I’m going to worry now? Like I’d ever let you down after what you’ve done for me?”
Her words moved Jay so much that he’d gotten out of his chair and looked out the window at the small rectangle of bay, a silver-gray on that morning. He noticed Mary examining his eyes as he sat down. She was always observing—so astute.
Mary addressed the group. She said, “LiveCell is doing something important, something worthwhile, and that’s worth the risk for me.”
Jay knew he’d hurt Mary deeply, but she seemed to manage to hide her pain in public. How could he make amends? He couldn’t tell her the truth, that was for certain. But now she was unwilling to attempt infusing the phones—he wasn’t sure why—and he felt daily that he was running out of time. Time was always the problem.
Chet Simmons was next. Since the day Jay hadn’t blamed him for the black-box fiasco and had reassured him that he would never be fired for doing his best, he viewed Jay with quiet but intense fondness. It was as if he’d never had an adult male friend and thought of Jay as his best friend.
At the meeting, “I’m in,” was all he said. After he spoke, his eyes flickered downward in embarrassment, and then he glanced shyly at Jimmy Hakken. Hakken gave him a closed-fist salute.
Both Cliff Thompson and Randy Dyer said they would do whatever it took. They were outraged and stunned by the surreptitious undermining and violence. They’d been in the corporate world all their working lives and had never imagined anything like this. It brought the fight out in both of them.
Cliff Thompson said, “I’m agonized by the drop in stock price, but I’m certain it’ll rebound once the press and the Food and Drug Administration back off. In some of the smaller newspapers, a counter-attack has surfaced, which is great. People’s loyalties to the phones have strengthened, if anything; sales are up, and worldwide sales are just beginning. We’ve lost a few battles, but we’re certain to win the war.”
Duncan had been drawing further and further into himself over the last months. He must have sensed that Mary and Deirdre were privy to things he wasn’t; of course, his suspicions were grounded. Then there was his sexual obsession with Mary, which had only intensified.
As they waited for his decision at the meeting, he said, “LiveCell is garnering some very powerful enemies. It doesn’t seem worth the risk to hold on to it. Jay, as you said, it’s getting dangerous for everyone. Why don’t you just sell it? I’m sure the new owners would allow everyone to remain, the sale would ease tensions, and we could still achieve the same goals. I don’t see any reason not to sell.”
Jay asked the others how they felt. They were unanimously against him selling. “There’s one reason,” said Jay. After more discussion, Duncan finally agreed to stay.
Sammy walked back from the juke, dancing to The Spinners doing “I’ll Be Around,” his big body imitating a steam locomotive pulling out of a station, his arms churning like the engine’s drivers. He took his stool beside Jay again, singing the refrain: “Baby, whenever you call me, I’ll be there; whenever you want me, I’ll be there; whenever you need me, I’ll be there—I’ll be around.” He gripped Jay’s shoulder. “Man, this one sweet afternoon.”
“The best,” said Jay. “I feel renewed.” But he didn’t; there was still a nasty pressure in his chest.
“That those beer angels doin’ their strut. They make a new man outa ya. For they are the beer angels, and they comfort and make new the weary. Psalm One-Fifty-One.” Sammy chuckled. “Man, I love this place.”
Jay nodded.
“Juss seein’ you smile, pay me back. You need take some time off like this. Man can’t work all the time. We should do this every Saturday.”
“Next time is my treat.”
“Now you talking.”
Sammy signaled Felix by swinging his hand as if he had a lasso. After the round arrived, he said, “Where you wanna go eat? Or you want something right here? The cook be in anytime now, and she fry a mean steak. Or we take the Benz, go anywhere you say. My treat, wherever you wanna go.”
Jay looked up at the clock over the bar again, though he knew the time. “I have to take off after this beer. I still have a few things to do at both factories.”
“Ah, man, no way, we juss gettin’ started.”
Jay saw the disappointment. “Let me have about an hour and a half and I’ll meet you back here. Save my stool. Actually, I would love to eat right here.”
“Now you talking, baby. We have some steaks, bake potatoes, biscuits and beans.” He slapped Jay on the shoulder again. “I walk you to your car. You still driving that jalopy?”
“It’s time for a new one. Just haven’t gotten around to it.”
When they left Felix’s Lounge, the twilight had reached that exact interval between day and night. A time when we believe everything appears more beautiful and magical. The blue neon of Lounge against its metal signboard appeared almost transposed from the vibrant hue of the sky. The Felix’s had been long burnt out. Below the sign, the street was fairly busy on that Saturday night; maybe neighbors were less afraid to be outside because of the holiday season. Some teenagers on skateboards and high-tech scooters clattered and banged along the sidewalks as they practiced stunts, a few leaners and stragglers in big down parkas watched their kids or argued and chatted with each other, drinking from screwed-up paper bags.
Sammy inhaled the cool evening air and let out a sigh. “Man, I must be crazy, but I always think Oakland have a special smell. Smell like home to me. Tonight it smell like happiness.” They turned left out of the door, walked slowly down Edes. This time Sammy didn’t notice the dark-brown sedan as it jerked out of a parking spot and drove at them. If he had noticed, he probably wouldn’t have recognized it—the headlights on bright blinded his view. He didn’t pay enough attention either when the sedan skidded to a stop just in front of them, about ten yards away. At that moment, Jay was looking across the street at two young kids playing tag and giggling, so it was only Sammy who vaguely saw the sedan’s door swing open. A white man leapt out, double-gripped an automatic, pointed it at Jay. Then Sammy reacted. With a sudden violent spasm he sprinted at the gun. He was already running hard, his head down, hunched over, when the man fired twice in rapid succession; a silencer muffled the explosions. The first bullet struck him in the chest but did not slow him. The second shot hit him high in the stomach. The gunman, seeing this huge black man charging him, jumped back into the sedan and screamed, “Go, go!” The tires squealed and smoked. The sedan lurched forward, careening away, the car door slamming shut from the acceleration. A third and fourth shot were fired out of the passenger window at Jay Chevalier. Only one of those bullets was ever found.
Sammy stopped running. He swayed as Jay caught up to him. Jay grabbed him as he collapsed, attempting to cushion his fall as best as he could. People on the street started yelling, running toward them. Jay begged someone to call an ambulance. For this one thing his LiveCell wouldn’t work without the black box.
He looked at his friend lying on the sidewalk, at Sammy’s face gray in the twilight, at his usually animated eyes dull and half-closed, at a small bubble of blood forming on his lips. He didn’t want to look any lower. He pulled off his sports coat and gently covered part of Sammy’s body with it. He wiped blood from Sammy’s lips and chin, wiped the sweat off Sammy’s forehead with his fingers.
“You’re going to be okay,” he said. “You’re going to be okay. Just hold on.”
Sammy seemed to hear him and his eyes focused a little.
“You’re going to be okay,” he said again.
He heard a siren. He sensed people gathered around him but didn’t listen to what they were saying. Most just stood and stared, a few of them spoke:
“Damn, that Sammy—Sammy Holmes.”
“Samuel Holmes, yeah, I remember him, he use to be a boxer.”
“Why somebody shoot him? What the fuck?”
Jay saw Sammy’s lips move. He bent down close, placing his ear next to his friend’s lips.
“Jolene,” he heard him say.
Jay waiting.
“Jay? You there?”
He told him he was there, “I’m here. You’re going to be okay.” Sammy tried to say something more but his eyes went dull again, and they closed. A minute passed. Jay didn’t notice Felix’s hand on his shoulder, or all the people murmuring. Another minute. The wavering cry of a siren growing louder. Sammy not moving. Jay not moving, his eyes locked on his friend’s face, his hands trembling.
It was then, during that eerie period of empty waiting, when everyone standing there was startled by a horrible sound. Jay Chevalier looked toward the heavens and he bellowed like a wounded animal.