37

I wanted my wheels back. Before anything else. Top priority. Even a lean mean private detecting machine needs his wheels.

I phoned for a taxi, then went down to the luncheonette hoping to catch a word or two with Mom about how Boris was. I wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

But Mom was not there. Norman was on his own behind the counter and, for once, he was sitting on a stool instead of griddling. He was reading something in a notebook, and I realized how rare it was to see him sitting down. Mr. Personality or otherwise, the guy worked hard. You had to give him that.

Was this going to be the day I saw his good side?

Should I try for some civilized conversation with him? If he responded… Well, we’d never be best buds, but it would be nice not to taste bile every time I walked by the guy. He did have genuine concern for my mother. Wasn’t that worth some effort? I could try something he’d be interested in. Hey, how about those new Harley-Davidsons…?

On the other hand, it’s not polite to interrupt someone who’s reading.

I turned instead to the pinball machine, but when I got to it, for some reason, I didn’t feel like playing. So I headed for the street, to wait for my cab.

“Out of quarters?” Norman called after me.

Asshole.

I’d been standing outside the luncheonette for three or four minutes when a green car coming up Virginia Avenue made a U-turn and pulled over to the curb beside me. I opened the back door and got in. “54th and College,” I said.

The driver started laughing and turned around. I found myself looking at the grinning, oval face of Jimmy Wilson. “Hey, if it ain’t Albert Gator out on the street looking like a lost dog. I see you still don’t got a new sign.”

“I thought you were a taxi, Jimmy. Sorry.” I moved to open the door again, but I used the wrong hand. “Fuck!”

“What’s with the hand? Cut it trying to fix the sign yourself?”

I reached across to open the door.

“Don’t get out. You want 54th and College? I can take you. I got time.”

“I called a cab. I left my car up there last night.”

“I saw it not here. I thought maybe you crashed it.”

“Thanks.”

“Well, I noticed the bandage, see. I notice things.”

Which made one of us. How could get I into a car without realizing it wasn’t a taxi?

Jimmy said, “That’s Moe & Johnny’s up there at 54th.”

“Is it?”

He chuckled and we pulled away from the curb. “Tell me what company?” He held up a cell phone. “I’ll tell ’em you’re coming with me.”

I was about to decline again but then I couldn’t think why I should.

He called the cab company and I looked out the window. Just before crossing the interstate bridge we passed the turn to Timothy Battle’s church. That put me in mind of a question I’d failed to ask myself—or someone who might know the answer. How did church arsonists come to have legal representation of the caliber of Tom Thomas at Ames, Kent, Hardick? I didn’t know Thomas, but the firm was a big one.

“There you go,” Jimmy said after a few words on the phone. “Everything kosher and bacon-crisp.”

His voice reminded me of another overdue, if less important, question.

I said, “What exactly do you do that has you driving up and down Virginia Avenue every day?”

“I go other places too.” He shrugged. “I give guys rides. And deliver stuff. And pick stuff up. Errands. That’s what I do.”

“Who for?”

“Lots of people. And they don’t expect me to advertise.”

“That’s how come you pay attention to neon signs? You yearn to advertise but they won’t let you?”

He checked out my unsmiling face in the rearview mirror. “You’re a funny guy, you know that?”

“But you do go up and down Virginia Avenue a lot, right?”

“I sure do.”

“And other places in the Fountain Square neighborhood?”

“Yeah. It’s a busy place.”

“So you must have noticed the graffiti and vandalism that’s been going on lately.”

He was quiet.

“You notice things, right?”

“Yeah, I’ve seen some of that.”

The overdue question… “Jimmy, why did you come to my office last Friday?”

“Because I saw—”

“And don’t say it was because of my neon sign.”

“Sure it was. You turned it on and it didn’t make no sense.”

“There are other broken signs around. Do you stop and talk to those people too?”

He was quiet again.

I said, “That would be easy for me to check.”

He snorted.

“Friday was the first day after I got my license back.”

“Oh yeah?”

“And when you came to my door you knew about my mother. You said she was a neat lady.”

“She is a neat lady.”

“How did you know about her, Jimmy?”

“She runs Bud’s Lunch. People know her.”

“So, you eat in there sometimes, is that it? When you’re in the neighborhood?”

“Sure, yeah. Sometimes.”

“How long you been doing that?”

“Quite a while now.”

“A year?”

“Maybe. Sure. A year or so.”

“My mother hasn’t run the luncheonette herself for a lot longer than a year, Jimmy. She’s almost never behind the counter these days.”

“No?”

“And you knew her first name. You also said you’d never met her but would like to. Why did you come to my office instead of going into the luncheonette if you wanted to meet my mother, Jimmy?”

“You got a good memory. You got to college for that?”

“Yeah, with a Masters in Sticking To The Subject. We’ve just crossed 22nd Street, Jimmy. If you don’t get your story straight by Fall Creek, I’m going to jump over the seat and grab the wheel and run us into a tree.”

“Naw, you wouldn’t—”

“You better fucking believe it.”

He went quiet again. It seemed like he did believe it. Just as well. I was losing patience. Not only with him, but with on-going vandalism, and arsonists with good lawyers, and honest cops accused of corruption, and kids who beat women to death in their back yards, and grandmothers who have to organize vigilante groups to make a neighborhood nice enough to live their years out in.

And my hand hurt. Jimmy did well not to mess with me. I wasn’t far from losing control.

He said, “I can see why guys would hire you. If any do, I mean, what with you having a sign outside your place that don’t mean shit. You really stay with stuff. Like one of them… whatchamacallits, that terrier with a bone. What kind of terrier am I thinking of?”

“A bone terrier. What’s this all about, Jimmy? I can see the Fall Creek Bridge coming up.”

“Well, let’s see. How’m I gonna put this?”

“In English will do nicely.”

“What happened was, I don’t know the name of the guy. I don’t drive him all the time, but more than once. And he was talking on the phone. What is it with lawyers, huh? There ain’t one I drive who don’t talk on the phone in the car. And it’s like I’m not there at all. Some of these guys, they even talk dirty to their girlfriends while I drive ’em. And I mean dirty dirty. It’s like I’m deaf and dumb to them. It’s like I’m fucking invisible.”

My mother claimed old people were invisible. Was I seeing invisible people now because I was becoming more observant?

I said, “Let’s pretend for a minute I believe you don’t know the guy’s name. What did he say, Jimmy?”

“You ever been in a war? Overseas, front line?”

“No.”

“It ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, believe me. Don’t lose no sleep over it.”

“Jimmy…”

“OK, OK. This guy is a lawyer and I’ve drove him before, like I said. And he’s always on the phone. So I’ve heard him talk about a lot of things, but then recently I heard him say your mother’s name a few times. Which I did already know, however. And this guy, it’s not like he says her name with respect. And then I’m driving him last Thursday and what he’s talking about is you and how you have your license back and he says that might be a problem. Your mother’s just an old bitch, but with you in the picture it might be something they have to deal with. That’s what he says, ‘Something to deal with.’”

“Deal with how?”

“I don’t know, but that’s why I asked if you were ever in a war, because it was the way they talk about things there, that hard edge in the voice. And to tell you the truth, I didn’t like the sound of it. And that’s why I came to your office. I don’t plan to lose my job over any of this but I thought maybe I’d keep some tabs, you know? And then you were nice to me, so I was glad I did it.”

“What about since Thursday?”

“I haven’t drove the guy since then.”

“Are you sure about what you’re telling me, Jimmy? That it’s accurate?”

“I’m sure. Hey, you know, I got a English uncle who’s a curate.”

“What?”

“It’s some kind of church thing.”

I looked at his face in the mirror. It broke into a smile and I realized that I should have liked Jimmy all along.

He said, “Hey, I got a million of ’em.”

“Do all these guys you drive ignore you?”

“I could be made by Ford with the rest of it.” He patted the dashboard. “But you, you gave me a cup of coffee.”

“And I owe you another one. Look, at 54th Street there’s a coffee place on the corner, Cath’s.”

“Yeah. OK. Why not?”

Cath’s’ armchairs weren’t as deep and comfortable as those at Roxanne’s, but we were on the north side and people up there don’t know how to live. The coffee, however, was acceptable. Jimmy also accepted a blueberry muffin.

“So how’d you get the hand?” he asked when we were settled.

“A guy stepped on it after he murdered someone.”

“That true?”

“Look in today’s Star.” I sipped from my coffee.

He studied my face. “How can you drink that stuff without you got no sugar in it?”

“Who was talking about my mother and me, Jimmy?”

He shook his head. “They know my name but I don’t know their name.”

“You know where you pick him up and where you drop him off.”

“Where I pick him up is where I pick them all up because I’m on call for a whole building. I come with the rent.” He showed me his cell phone again. “That’s me, just a phone call away.”

“I’m going to get one of those.”

“Get your sign fixed first.”

“Where’s the building, Jimmy?”

He shook his head.

“All I have to do to find out is follow you around.”

He tasted his coffee and then stirred more sugar into it.

“And then I go into the building to find out which lawyers work there.” I drank from my own cup. “In fact, suppose I guess the name of a law firm. If I get it right, all you have to do is nod.”

He picked up his blueberry muffin.

“I think your building houses the offices of Ames, Kent, Hardick.”

The muffin stopped just south of his mouth.

“Is that a good muffin? All you have to do is nod.”

The muffin returned to a saucer. “You been checking up on me, Albert?”

“An Ames, Kent, Hardick lawyer named Tom Thomas called me yesterday. He said bad things would happen to my career if I continue to help a church in my neighborhood that’s been attacked by vandals and arsonists.”

“The one near the interstate?”

“You know about that? Some of your passengers been talking about the church?”

“Hey, I know all kindsa stuff. You know why a tank is called a ‘tank’? Ever think about it?”

“No.”

“I forgot, you was never in a war.”

“I feel like I’m in a kind of war now, Jimmy.”

He was silent for a moment before he said, “I’ve helped you about as far as I can go.”

“Burning churches, killing pets, damaging people’s houses… Those things are wrong.”

“Bush finished second but won the prize. That ain’t right, but it’s how things are.”

“Are you afraid? Is that it?”

“I’m afraid I got a wife at home in a wheelchair that’s only got me to provide for her.”

Which was not a small matter. I said, “OK. Let’s leave it there for now. But I may have to come back to you, Jimmy. You know stuff.”

“I know whoever said there’s no such thing as a free muffin, I should of listened.”

“Thank you for coming to my office last Friday, Jimmy. You’re an island of humanity in a sea of greed.” I really felt it. Talking with him had brought me back from the brink of something.

He lifted his coffee cup as if acknowledging a toast. “You’re welcome.”

Winston Churchill commissioned the first tanks around the time of World War I. They were a big secret. In the factory that made them, the official order form said they were “Water Carriers for Mesopotamia.” But the guys on the factory floor referred to them as water tanks, and then tanks.

I got all that, and more, while we finished our coffees. “You want I should walk you to your car to make sure it starts?” Jimmy said as we left Cath’s.

“It always starts.”

“But does it finish?”

I stood in Cath’s lot until he pulled out. Then I crossed College to where my car was parked on 54th Street, across from Moe & Johnny’s. “Fun on a platter” was how their logo read. Not Mary’s and my experience of the previous night as a whole, but that wasn’t Moe’s fault. Or Johnny’s.

I wondered how Mary was coping. With a cell phone I could have called to find out. There was a public phone outside the supermarket next to Cath’s, but the car took priority.

Even in a neckbrace Mary was probably feeling better than I was, being as how she was a mere sprig and not an old trunk like me.

I unlocked the car door, still thinking about Mary, wondering if she would win anything on her Lotto ticket. Then I noticed that my car wasn’t quite level. Had I parked in a pothole?

I walked around and I saw that the offside front tire was flat. Not just flat—it had been cut. Above it on the paintwork someone had scratched a face with a tongue sticking out and the number nine.

“Fuck,” I said. Then I remembered the spare was already on the car and all I had in the trunk was an unrepaired flat.

I sat on the curb beside the leery face. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.”

I’d been sky-high since getting my license back. On a roll. Now suddenly I was in the pit again, feeling the way I felt for so long. Attacked by the world. Nowhere to go that didn’t lead me straight into a black wall. Why my car?

A part of my brain said, keep calm. It’s just a tire. No big.

But it was a big. Every time I try to take a fucking step forward, something gets in my way, something keeps me immobile. It was like my arms were pinned to my sides when all I wanted to do was stretch them out and grab on to something, someone…

It was hard to bear.

I didn’t want to bear it. I’d hoped I’d never feel this way again. How can things change so fast?

Get a grip, Albert, the calm side of my brain said. Be a grown-up. Call someone. But who? Mary had a business to run, and whiplash. Sam was already out on an errand. Mom?

When Norman’s name occurred to me I accepted that the car was screwed, and so was I, and all for no better reason than to provide entertainment for some bored fucking kid who signed himself Nine. Or herself.

I got up and pounded the roof of the car in frustration with my good hand. Then with both hands. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

I sat down on the curb again.

My right hand hurt, so badly. All I could do was cradle it in my left. And hum to it. For whatever reason.

And, somehow, I moved on.

I realized that my feelings now were not the same as those that plagued and engulfed and attacked me during the dark years without my license. Then I was cut off from anything that made it worth getting up in the morning, worth going to bed at night, worth doing any fucking thing at all. Then I felt numbness.

This was pain.

That was depression.

What I felt now was anger. Pure, personal fucking rage.

I felt like Nine had let my blood, not air, out of the tire. I felt like the leering face had been carved in my skin. I might not be able to do anything about Nine, but that didn’t mean I had to sit still for every fucking thing like it. I’d sat still, dumb and blind for too long. Far too long.

So I got up. I unlocked the trunk and took out the dead tire that lay there. I carried it back across the street to the public phone. I called a cab.

Vandals in the abstract are one thing. You can think rationally about them. This was not abstract. This had happened to me.