George Pelecanos - The Way Home

Couples were hiking along the shoulder and on trails, and cyclists were taking their bikes off the racks of their cars. Chris went down Ellipse Road and saw the Corinthian columns, twenty-two sandstone structures that had once been located on the east portico of the Capitol, now standing in an open meadow. He remembered his parents taking him here as a child, water running under the shadows of the columns down a graduated channel to a reflecting pool, his father grabbing his collar as Chris had attempted to jump in.

He took another road, squeezing by a groundsman hauling hay in a motorized cart. He saw employees but fewer visitors as the van climbed up into more thickly forested areas, the Conifer and then the Dogwood collections. He followed the clearly marked signs and drove up the winding Hickory Hill Road, then parked beside a Chevy Cavalier in a shaded lot near a brick structure that he reckoned housed men’s and women’s bathrooms. He locked the van and headed toward a trail, passing a woman who was carrying a bucket and wearing an Arboretum shirt. He had arrived at the Asian Collection, a section boasting a variety of plants imported from China, Korea, and Japan, now thriving in the hilly woods.

Chris walked down a steeply graded wood-chip-and-dirt path lined by beveled railroad ties. At the bottom of the grade was a wooden bench in a clearing, where Lawrence Newhouse stood waiting. Lawrence wore an LRG T-shirt with a matching hat, and Nikes edged in red to pick up the red off the shirt. His cap sat high and cocked atop his braids.

They nodded at each other but didn’t shake hands. Lawrence sat down on the bench and Chris joined him. Several feet before them was a ledge, and there the land dropped off precipitously. They could see the tops of trees and below, on the ridge floor, the brown ribbon of the Anacostia River, sun glinting off its water.

“This here’s my spot,” said Lawrence.

“I don’t know this place,” said Chris.

“That’s what makes this shit so special. I used to ride my bike here all the way from Wade Road in Southeast. It’s far, but I was young, and I had mad energy. I came all that way to look at this. To sit here and have that kind of peace, it was worth it to me. You ever see where me and Ali come up?”

“Ali drove me up Stanton once.”

“Then you know. I was round the corner in Parkchester. Ali was down at the bottom of the Farms, near Firth Sterling Ave. What they called the dwellings. Not houses or apartments or homes… dwellings. Anyway, Ali and his mom got out. I’m proud of that boy.”

“I am, too.”

“He tryin to help all them young niggas who think they got to be one way. I thought he could help my nephew Marquis.”

“I know Marquis. He’s a decent kid.”

“He’s smart. Talented, too. He just needs to get out of that fucked-up environment he’s in. Before it does to him what it did to me.”

“Ali was gonna hook him up with a fast-food job, wasn’t he?”

“But I wanted Ali to put him someplace better. A place where he could learn a trade. That’s why I reached out to him and asked him to get up with you and your pops. But he wasn’t willin to do it. Maybe ’cause it was me askin. So I contacted Ben. I thought Ben might speak to you about it. I didn’t know nothin about no money until Ben’s tongue got loose behind that Popov and weed. I wasn’t tryin to do my boy dirt.”

“But you did it anyway.”

Lawrence narrowed his eyes. “That’s right. I stole that money. What, you thought I was gonna let it sit there like you? I’m not that kind of sucker. But I didn’t know Ben was gonna get done behind it. Ben was my boy.”

They sat there and listened to the birds, and the wind moving the leaves on the trees.

“Who did this?” said Lawrence.

“Trash,” said Chris. “Two white guys, older than us. Seemed to me that they’ve been in the system a long time. No one who’s lived on the outside looks like that. There was a little guy with a big mustache and heavy ink. Looks like he kissed a train. His partner’s a beast. Clover tat on one hand. Big gut, big chest. The little guy’s the blade man. I’m guessing he murdered Ben. The big one carries a gun.”

“Then we gonna need to tool up, too. I can do that.”

Chris nodded slowly.

“You know what you’re fixin to do?” said Lawrence. “I’m sayin, are you up for it?”

“Are you? ”

“I ain’t never killed no one,” said Lawrence. “But when they do one of your own, you got to come back hard.”

“That’s right,” said Chris, with no enthusiasm.

“Unit Five,” said Lawrence, and he held out his fist. Chris did not raise his hand. “You too good to dap me up?”

“I’m not about that anymore, Lawrence.”

“You done put it all behind you, huh. But you here, though. Right?”

Chris looked away.

“Okay,” said Lawrence. “How we gonna contact them?”

“I’ve got a cell number on my caller ID. I’ll set up a meet. I’ll tell them I’m ready to give up the money.”

“Let me have the number. I’ll make the call.”

“Why?”

“ ’Cause I took the money, White Boy. Like you said, it’s on me. I’m runnin this shit or I’m out.”

“I’ll do it alone, then.”

“No, you won’t. You ain’t hard enough, Christina. You just think you are. But you don’t get to the kinda hard that me and them other boys at the Ridge were at, comin from where you did. With your home and your library and your pet dog.”

“I did the same time you did.”

“But you never did the real time. I’m talkin about the time I did as a child. All the beatings I took, from the men in my mother’s apartment to the boys out on the street. The beatings I took in my heart from the teachers who told me I wasn’t shit and never was gonna be shit. Then in Pine Ridge, feeding me meds just to make me normal.” Lawrence shook his braids away from his face and stared down at the water. “I was in Lorton before they closed it. So crowded you were living on top of men who would punch you in the face for nothin. Know what I did to get out of there? I screamed like a baby. I smeared my own shit on myself and I ate it, too. They took me outta there. Put me in Saint E’s for a while. They had me in one of them jackets with straps. I musta took everything they had in their medicine cabinet, boy. I couldn’t tell the difference between who I was and who I was pretendin to be. When I got released? Wasn’t nobody with their arms out and a smile on their face. But when you came out the Ridge, I bet there was someone there for you.” Chris did not answer, and Lawrence said, “Bet your mother made you a real nice dinner, too.”

She did, thought Chris. His father had put three New York strips out on the grill, and his mother had made onion rings and a big salad to go with the steaks. She had set the table in the dining room with candles, and for dessert had baked him his favorite cake, a rich German chocolate. The dog had flopped down under the table while they ate, resting against Chris’s feet. They did not speak much during dinner, but it was not uncomfortable, and afterward Chris went up to his room and slept on clean sheets that smelled of spring.

“We about to do a murder, son,” said Lawrence. “Who you want in charge of this shit? You or me?”

Chris reached into his pocket, retrieved his cell, and flipped it open. He scrolled through his contacts and found the number he had taken from caller ID and saved. He handed the phone to Lawrence, who transferred it into his own cell.

“Where they gonna put Ben?” said Lawrence.

“As soon as the police release his body, we’re having his ashes buried at Rock Creek.”

“That was Ben’s thing,” said Lawrence. “Me, I want to be right here.”