Эд Макбейн - Love, Dad

“You try to give that money back, I’ll break your arm,” he said. “A deal’s a deal.”

“You have no use for any of that stuff,” Lissie said.

“I’ll give it to all my friends as presents. Throw a party, invite all my friends, and lay this stuff on ’em. How long you gonna be here in Boston?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“Give you a call, invite you to m’party.”

“No, I’d rather you didn’t.”

“Why? ’Cause I’m black?”

“That’s part of it, yes.”

“What’s the rest of it?”

“You’re a pusher,” she said. “That’s the rest of it.”

“I coulda said I was a civil engineer.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I’ll tell you a story, Liss,” he said, and somehow his use of the diminutive put them instantly on a more familiar basis. “When I was in the third grade, teacher went out the room for a coupla minutes, an’ when she come back she ast the class, ‘Who was talkin’ while I was out the room?’ Well, ever’body was talkin’, but nobody raised their hand. ’Cept me. I’m the dummy raised his hand. So teacher — her name was Mrs. Rosen, she taught me the biggest lesson I ever learned — she says to me, ‘All right, Spartacus, you may stay after school for a half-hour today.’ You dig? For bein’ honest, I’m the one gets the heavy shit laid on him. Never again. Never. Never confess to nothin’ an’ never volunteer for nothin’. When I was in Nam—”

“Vietnam? You were in the Army?”

“Yeah.”

“When was that?”

“Got out six months ago.”

“And started pushing.”

“Listen, Mrs. Rosen, I’m sorry I opened my fuckin’ mouth, okay? It was a way to make a quick buck, okay, get me back on my feet again. Ain’t too many patriotic Americans eager to hire us war vets, you know, even if we’re lily-white pure, which I don’t happen to be, as you already pointed out,” he said, and grinned.

“I’ve got a thing about pushing dope, okay? Let’s leave it at that.”

“’Fraid I’ll try to turn you on? Hook the honkie from Connecticut?”

“No, I’m not afraid of that. I’d never stick a needle in my body as long as I live.”

“They’s other than needles, Lissie chile. You best beware the mean ole pusher,” he said, and cocked his head to one side and curled his hands into a witch’s claws.

“I really don’t think that’s funny,” she said.

“Anyway, I’m plannin’ on gettin’ out of it,” he said.

“Sure you are.”

“I mean it. Maybe go to India like you did. See the world. I got me quite a bit of money stashed away...”

“I’ll bet. The blood of innocent...”

“Hey, lay off that shit, okay?” he said, and reached across the table and grabbed her wrist.

“Let go of me,” she said.

“Just lay off, okay?”

“Just keep your hands off me.”

“Black nigger hands, right?”

“No, black fucking pusher hands, let go of me!”

“Okay, okay,” he said, and released her wrist. “Man, you really do have a thing, don’t you?”

“I said I did.”

“I’m hearin’ you, I’m hearin’ you.”

“Don’t ever do that again. I don’t like to be... to be... I just don’t like it.”

“Okay.”

They were silent for a moment.

“I meant what I said about maybe gettin’ out.”

“Sure.”

“Maybe go to Spain. You ever been to Spain?”

“No.”

“Want to come with me?”

“Sure, when do we leave?”

“You mean it?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Then how about comin’ up to my place instead? Have a little smoke together.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to.”

“You smoke, you tole me you...”

“Yes, but I don’t want to.”

“Come on,” he said.

“No.”

“Come on.”

“No.”

“I’ll call you sometime, okay?”

“No.”

“I’ll call you.”

“No.”

“I’ll call you.”

Sparky Marshall was a black man in his mid-twenties, Jamie guessed, wearing just under his lower lip an ornamental patch of hair Jamie had learned to call a “Dizzy kick” when Gillespie was turning the music world around with his bop in the late forties. Above the miniature spade beard (No pun intended, Jamie thought) Sparky’s smile was a dazzling white. His eyes were intensely brown, his hair formed a tightly knit woolen cap over his skull, his nostrils flared, his lips were thick, he was altogether black and altogether handsome, and he was, moreover, fucking Jamie’s daughter.

“The Sparky is for Spartacus,” he said, extending his hand and taking Jamie’s in a firm grip. “Spartacus was a slave. So was my great-granddaddy.”

Jamie was wondering whether Lissie expected Sparky to sleep in the same room with her that night. He discussed this privately with Connie. Then they discussed it with Lissie.

“We feel Sparky should sleep in the guest room over at the barn,” Jamie said.

“What for?” Lissie said. “We’re sleeping together in Boston, what kind of hypocrisy is this?”

“I don’t care what you’re doing in Boston,” Connie said. “This is Connecticut, and this is my house, and in my house Sparky sleeps in the barn.”

“You don’t know how funny that is,” Lissie said.

“I’m glad you think it’s funny.”

“What you just said. About in your house Sparky sleeps in the barn.”

“I think you know exactly what I mean, Liss.”

“Okay. He sleeps in the barn, I sleep in the barn. Does that take the curse off?”

“I don’t know what curse you’re talking about,” Connie said. “It simply seems to me that if you were visiting Sparky’s parents for the weekend, as he is visiting us for the weekend, then I’d expect them to find a room for you while you were there, a private room of your own, and that’s what I intend to provide for Sparky. In the barn.”

“You’re not at all concerned about his privacy,” Lissie said. “This is sheer hypocrisy. And I wouldn’t be surprised if it had something to do with his being black.”

“That has nothing to do with it,” Jamie said.

“Some of my best friends are black, right?” Lissie said.

“As a matter of fact, some of them are,” Jamie said.

“Sure, Dad.”

“Lissie, he sleeps in the barn,” Jamie said flatly.

“Then so do I.”

“What you do is your business,” Jamie said. “If you want to go creeping over there in your nightgown in the middle of the night, that’s up to you. But while Mom and I are both awake, then you’re in your room in the house, and Sparky’s in his room in the barn.”

“Hypocrisy,” Lissie said, but she was smiling.

Connie’s parents were in Rutledge that weekend for their usual monthly visit; they would be leaving soon for two weeks in the Caribbean. At the dinner table that Friday night, Jamie tried to explain (to a less than fascinated audience) an idea he had for something he thought he might call “The Face Book.”

“I’d start with the premise that there are only two or three dozen perfect facial types in the entire world,” he said, “and then I’d find the definitive example for each type, and then start looking for people who resembled whoever it might be, Lena Horne, let’s say,” and he glanced at Sparky. “I’ll take their pictures and then do a sort of color-spectrum thing, string them all out, maybe fifty or so photographs on facing pages. It’d be like they did in Jekyll and Hyde, the way Spencer Tracy changed—”