Peter Abrahams - Last of the Dixie Heroes

“It’s supposed to be a residential neighborhood.”

“Not one you’ll be able to afford. Pay on this job’s the same as yours, plus two point five cost-of-living adjustment. Still interested?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Your boss says you can do the job. Gonna need more than that. Gonna need hitting the ground running.”

“I promise,” Roy said. He glanced down the table. Curtis gave him a thumbs-up.

“What’s that on your face?” Ferrucci said, squinting at him on the screen.

“Nothing.”

“Tell you what we’ll do, then,” Ferrucci said. “If you can get up here by the-” He stopped, looked off camera, listened to something Roy couldn’t make out. Someone handed him a sheet of paper. Ferrucci read it, the top of his shiny head glaring from the screen. When he looked up, he had a new expression on his face. The air began leaking from the room; Roy’s lungs felt it right away.

“Know K. C. Chen?” Ferrucci said.

“The subagent in Shanghai?” Roy said. Without taking his eyes off Ferrucci’s image, he was aware of Curtis’s forehead wrinkling. He reached for his throat to loosen the tie, unfasten the button, found he’d already done that.

“Correct,” said Ferrucci.

“I’ve worked with her.”

“She a straight shooter?”

“I’ve never had any problems with her,” Roy said.

“It’s not mutual,” said Ferrucci.

“I’m sorry?” Roy said. His hand was in his pocket, wrapped around the inhaler.

“She says you hung her out to dry”-his eyes went to the paper in his hand, then locked on Roy-“with three freight cars of ammonium nitrate. Three open goddamn cars, running loose through the rice paddies.”

“But-” Roy couldn’t get a breath. He fumbled with the blue diamond tie, struggled with it, tore it off. “But-” No air, no air at all. Roy jerked himself out of the jacket, ripped open the shirt, still couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t breathe, but could somehow smell his smell and Curtis’s smell mixed together in the silk of the shirt. “Just a minute, I’ll ex-” Then he had the inhaler to his mouth, sprayed it down his throat, took a deep breath. He was still taking it when Ferrucci spoke to someone off camera and the screen went black.

“Wait,” Roy said. He picked up the microphone, rose so the camera had a better view of him, leaned his face right into it. “I can explain, Mr. Ferrucci. It’s just a misunderstanding, nothing came of it, there was no harm-”

Curtis snatched the microphone from his hand. “Why didn’t I know about this?”

Roy looked at Curtis, up at the black screen, back at Curtis. Was it over? It had to be some technical difficulty, maybe an electrical Curtis grabbed a handful of Roy’s shirt-his own shirt-pulled him close. “Why didn’t I know about this?”

Because you’re just a dumb nigger.

But maybe there was a God: Roy didn’t say it out loud.

He left without another word, bumping something, table, chair, on the way. A gold cuff link fell to the floor with a bright clinking sound.

Roy sat in his kitchen, frozen to a chair. Night fell but he didn’t turn on any lights. He opened the bottle of Chardonnay, the only booze in the house. He drank some, didn’t like it, drank more. What he wanted was Old Grand-Dad, and he’d never even tasted it. When the bottle was empty, he got up and went through his dark house and into his dark bedroom. He took off his Georgia Football T-shirt, his socks, shoes, chinos, boxers, lay on his bed, passed out. His mind went blank.

Roy thought he heard crying in the night. He sat up. That would be Rhett, down the hall. Poor kid. Roy got up. The moment his foot touched the cold floor, he remembered everything: Rhett, Marcia, job-gone.

Roy stood there, naked and still, for a long time. He became aware of a shadow in the corner of the room, a squat shape he couldn’t identify, didn’t remember being there. He went over, laid his hand on it. The old leather-bound trunk. He gazed down at it, and as he did, thought he heard crying again. Impossible: but crying, and close by. Roy opened the trunk. Everything went silent. He got on his knees, dug through the layers of thick wax paper, found the uniform, held it; heavy in his hands.

Roy put on the uniform. A complicated uniform, with things he wasn’t used to, like a button fly, suspenders: but he had no trouble with it, none at all, even in the darkness. The uniform fit him like a glove. His finger found the little hole in the jacket right away, poked through, felt his own beating heart.

Roy heard the phone ring, heard the click of the answering machine picking up. It didn’t all come back to him, no coming back necessary. It was all there now, securely fixed inside, ready to be a part of him the instant he awoke. Securely fixed inside, but maybe not totally understood, because he could still think: Curtis, Marcia, Ferrucci, Cesar-someone calling to make things right!

It was Gordo.

“Rise and shine, good buddy. We got job huntin’ to do. How about we start with bacon, eggs, and brewskis? Get back to me.” Beep. Gordo: cheered by all the company he suddenly had.

Roy tried to sink back into sleep. He couldn’t do it. Memories were waiting now, little shards of them, coming in waves. The clothing memories alone-blue-diamond tie, silk shirt with cuff links, Georgia Football T-shirt, red bikini top-were enough to drive sleep away all by themselves. But how he wanted it, the unconscious part, at least.

Roy got up, went into the bathroom, gave himself a shock. There he was in the mirror, fully dressed in his inherited uniform. He’d forgotten that part, the final act of a long day. He stared at his image, had a funny moment of not quite knowing it was him, as though he were looking in the mirror and seeing someone else. More than a moment, actually; he wasn’t able to snap out of it, not completely. And the battle-weary look that Lee had worn in the photograph beside the cannon: the man in the mirror had it too.

The phone rang again. He heard a woman’s voice coming over the answering machine, missed the first part of what she said, caught, “calling from Globax. You can reach-”

Roy hurried out of the bathroom, snatched up the phone.

“Roy Hill here,” he said, unbuttoning the uniform jacket, shrugging off the suspenders.

“Oh, you’re there.” She introduced herself. “I’m with human resources,” she said.

“Human resources?” Were they offering him a job in human resources? He didn’t know anything about human resources. He knew shipping.

“All terminated employees are entitled to free career counseling. I’m booking appointments.”

“For what?”

“A forty-five-minute career-counseling session, at Globax expense. We outsource it to several companies so you can actually choose the one you want. As luck would have it, two happen to be quite close to you.” She named them. “I can book either one, your choice.”

“Then what?” said Roy.

“Then if you decide to add extra sessions, Globax subsidizes the cost on a sliding scale depending on the number of sessions.”

Not what he’d meant. He’d meant: How long till I get a new job?

“Still with me?” said the woman. “This sliding scale goes from fifty down to ten in even increments. Percent, is what I’m talking about, Ray, depending-”

“It’s Roy,” Roy said, and too loudly. “Roy Hill.” He came very close to saying Roy Singleton Hill.

There was a pause. Roy could hear a stock market report from a TV in the woman’s office. “Sorry, Roy,” said the woman. “I’m just trying to inform you about the counseling opportunity, that’s all. A lot of people have found the program very helpful.”