Jeffery Allen - Holding Pattern - Stories

Bent at the waist, a man my age and of my build prepares to enter his compact Japanese car. He looks up, sees me, and straightens himself, keys in hand. “How are you?”

“Fine. How about you?”

“Never been better.” He approaches me. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” I’m expecting some mundane question about weather or directions.

“Did you talk to that guy?”

“Not really.”

“Did you hear what he was saying?”

“I really wasn’t listening. I mean, I wasn’t even trying to hear what he had to say. I figured he was crazy, that’s all.”

“He ain’t crazy. No, sir. I knew that guy way back in high school. He may be tricky. Ain’t crazy, though. He been tellin all these reporters that he’s got a wife over in London and a brother in Germany and that he’s got a degree from this college and a plaque from this organization. All kinds of stuff. He’s got a whole lotta them supporting him.”

“Uh-huh. So you think he fakin it? Hustlin them?”

“I’ll put it to you like this. He don’t care nothin bout no white folks.”

From the Daily :

The university police department states the following incidents have been reported between Wednesday, March 14, and Tuesday, March 20:

Suspicious Persons

Monday, March 19, 3:31 p.m.,

UPD received a report of a suspicious person in the J. D. Williams Library. The person was described as a black male, no facial hair, and in his mid 20s. Negative contact was made with the person by UPD.

Friday, March 16, 9:52 a.m.,

UPD received a report of a suspicious person in the lobby area of Carrier Hall. He was described as a black male, approximately 5ʹ6ʺ-5ʹ7ʺ tall, 160–175 lb, short hair, clean shaven, and dark complexion. He entered an office, where he asked to use the phone and also asked if there was any food in the building.

Dr. Hallard and I are the first guests to arrive for the cocktail party at an antebellum mansion, a white two-story structure with six green slat-backed wooden rocking chairs positioned across a long wide porch.

“Isn’t this something?” he says.

“True that. Sure we should go in? We might not get out.”

He laughs.

We enter the house and go right to the bar, discreet, taking little notice of our grand surroundings. Dr. Hallard is taller than I am, and I have come to learn that he is a jocular man. He tells me how much he likes my work, that I’m the real deal, how he can’t wait to read more.

“Well,” I say, “I learned everything I know from you.” I give him a playful slap on his blazer-covered back. I’ve never read him.

“Oh no.” He laughs. “I’m just a historian trying my hand at new things in my old age.”

“That’s where we’re alike. I try my hand too.”

A sharply dressed middle-aged woman approaches us. She has a long face and a protruding mouth like a sea horse’s. “Hi, I’m Mrs. Jason. I’m with the university.”

“Glad to meet you.”

“You’re—”

“Yes. And this is Dr. William Hallard.”

“Of course, I recognized you both. So glad you could join us.”

“Glad to be here.”

“You folks enjoying yourselves?”

“Most definitely.”

“Good.”

“This is some house.”

“Have you had a look around?”

“No.”

“Please do.”

I set off in one direction, and Dr. Hallard sets off in another. I wander through odd-shaped rooms that open one out into another. Let my gaze wander over gaudy Victorian settees and sofas, four-footed mahogany bookcases with scrolled cupboard doors, cylinder-topped bureaus on bow-legs and bun feet, peg-calved corner tables, inlaid bonheurs du jour , etched display cabinets, heavy curtains like mounds of hardened lava, narrow-shouldered grandfather clocks like genetically altered men. Every inch of the papered walls blocked with paintings — equestrians, seascapes, landscapes, and portraits — tree, sail, saddle, and cheek textured in age-thickened curls of oil.

The house quickly fills. People casual in conversation. Tilted heads and raised glances. Tinkling ice. Quiet sips. I make many introductions, names and professional descriptions that I quickly forget. I make my way back to the bar, where the bartender is hard at work, his hands circling a small table with a neat arrangement of tonic and seltzer water, vodka and soda, wine and whiskey, lime and lemon. He wears a white shirt, black bowtie crossed at the throat, and black slacks, and speaks in a high light cadence, like a rock skipping over water. He hands me my gin and tonic in a plastic cup.

“Would you know the story behind this house?” I take a sip. Just right. Take another sip.

“Yes. It’s a miracle it’s still standing. They burned everything else.” His face reveals no emotion. Shark gaze, eyes black and blank. “It was owned by a doctor who treated both sides during the war.”

“I see.”

“The university purchased it a few years ago.”

“Well, thanks for enlightening me.”

“My pleasure. Like another?”

“Yes.” I watch him prepare the drink, words stirring inside. I take my drink and hurry off to the dining room. Guests gathered around a cloth-covered mahogany table crowded with plates, pots, and utensils. Some fishy substance — life feeds on life — in rectangular pans kept warm by flaming canned heat. Dinner rolls like bare baby butts cradled in a wicker basket. Salad growing in glass bowls. Dressed like checkerboard squares — white shirt, black pants, white apron, black shoes — bustling attendants enter and exit the room, trays at the ready.

“Is that crayfish?” I ask one of them.

“Crawfish,” she says.

“Okay. That’s how we say it where I’m from.”

“And where’s that?”

I tell her.

“I have family up north.”

“Do you.”

“Enjoy your food.”

“I will.”

I eat till I am stuffed. Clean my hands on a cloth napkin and toss it on a waiter’s shouldered platter. Then I travel down a long hall — with a polished floor like a wooden runway — that leads to the roped-off upper story, oak banister gleaming like a wet tongue. I take a seat on the carpeted stairway, red rope inches above my head. I down my drink, neck craned back and plastic cup covering my mouth, muzzlelike. Sight along liquored edge and see a woman smiling down at me. A saloned blond in her early to mid forties, pure East Coast elegance in a black party dress with perfectly matched jewelry. Her skin is puffy, rebellious, refuses to stay flat.

“Did you try the crawfish?”

I lower my cup. “Yes. Delicious.”

“Do say. Dessert should be ready soon.”

“I can’t wait.”

“So, how do you like our town?”

“Fine, so far.”

“Your first time here?”

“Yes. Well, not exactly. My folks come from these parts. Houston.”

“Oh, that’s only about forty miles east of here.”

“So I’ve been told. I used to visit my great-aunt every summer when I was a kid.”

“Well, enjoy your stay.”

“I plan to.”

“I think you’ll find the people in town are more than friendly. They’ll go out of their way to help you. Anything you need, just ask.”

“I will.”

“And, you know, before you leave, you should go down to Benjy’s and try their shrimp-and-grits dinner. It’s an absolute delicacy.”

“I will.”

I make my way back to the bar and discover Dr. Hallard, drink in hand, keeping the interest of a circle of listeners. (Perhaps he will hold them seven nights with seven hundred tales.) I follow the path of duty to the sitting room, where a squadron of eaters and talkers are sprawled about in high-backed armchairs. I talk to this person and that but soon run out of things to say. Conversation congeals into polite patterns. Attentive gazes and curious glances recede into fatigue or boredom. Faces go lax from alcohol. I scan the room for fresh skin. Survey the mansion one last time. Have another drink or two. End up back where I started. Voices pelt me, bang and run rough. I could attack. I could trot like a bull through every room of this fucking mansion, charge my enemies head-on, bumping and butting those who refused to give way. Stomp down ugly. Instead, I escape to the porch and scoot into a rocking chair. I am tiny inside it, a baby in a high seat. Notice a huge oak just left of the house as wide as three men. Stare out at the road, a dark screen of trees behind it. And I listen. Insects humming like incoming missiles.