Bill Morris - Motor City Burning

“Let’s go see what there is to see,” the Surf said, opening his door and lifting himself out of the car with a groan.

“You want me to come in?” Willie said.

“Sure. Why the hell not?”

Halfway up the sidewalk Chick stopped and put a hand on Willie’s shoulder. His breath smelled minty. “Oh, say Willie, I almost forgot. I had an idea back at the club. You ever think about selling cars for a living?”

“Nosir, can’t say that I have.”

“Well, I could use a sharp young guy like you on my lot. Someone who can talk to, you know, to all kinds of people.”

Willie stiffened. “You mean to black people.”

“I mean black people, white people, rich people, working people. I get all kinds. And I’m sure you’d make a hell of a lot more money than you’re making at the club.”

“I don’t doubt that.”

“Well, give it some thought.”

“Yessir, I will.”

“I’m serious.”

The front door was unlocked. Willie followed him into a slate-floored foyer, through an enormous dining room lit by a chandelier, then down a long hallway that led toward the back of the house, toward muffled music.

“Where the fuck is she?” the Surf muttered as he went. Then he cried, with too much joy, “Ah, there you are, Shug! I’m home!”

The woman sitting on the sofa was reading a magazine and smoking a cigarette. She looked bored and angry, like someone who’d been waiting for a bus a long time. She was a fading beauty with dyed blonde hair that was going black at the roots. She was wearing suede high-heels the color of burgundy wine. At first Willie thought her legs were bare, but then he realized she was wearing stockings. Flesh-toned, Willie said to himself. She put down her copy of Town & Country and took a pull from a glass full of ice and brown fluid. Chick Murphy turned down the stereo on his way to her. Willie recognized the music — that Herb Alpert chump with his Tijuana Brass. So this was the kind of swinging shit rich white people listened to. Smoke was leaking from the woman’s nostrils. “So Chick, what possessed you to buy a gun?”

“Who says I bought a gun?” he said, pecking her cheek and tearing at his necktie. “This is Willie Bledsoe from the club, darling. Willie, my bride Blythe. Willie gave me a lift home because—”

“Because you’re stone drunk, as usual. I say you bought a gun. I found it in your sock drawer this morning.”

“I bought it. . I bought it for protection.” He gave Willie a sheepish look. “But mainly, Shug, I bought it because I woke up the other day and realized I’ve got to be ready to kill any man who tries to come between you and I.”

“Between you and me.”

“Oh for chrissakes, Blythe, lay off the grammar lessons already and fix us a drink, wouldya. Willie, you want something?”

“Nosir, I’d better be going.”

He watched the woman rise from the sofa, shakily, to her full height. With the heels she was nearly six feet tall. She must have been a fox in her day. Still not bad, but the skin was getting leathery from the sun, the hair was kind of scorched looking, and the ass was widening under the tight silk skirt. He noticed that her legs were still good — a woman’s legs are the last thing to go — as she wobbled over to the bar in the corner and poured from a crystal decanter marked SCOTCH. She picked up tongs and added two ice cubes from a sweating silver bucket. “You sure you don’t want something — Willie, is it?”

“No ma’am. I really need to be getting back to the club.” He took in the scene. Two people with more money than they would ever be able to spend, with a gun in the sock drawer, unable to speak proper English or act civilized in front of a stranger, listening to Herb Alpert while drinking themselves blind day in and day out, the bitterness between them growing like some malignant tumor. Again Willie thought of his mother — and how this scene would confirm every suspicion she ever had about white people, especially the ones with money.

The woman handed the drink to her husband. “You need to protect me,” she said, “why don’t you learn how to fight?”

He collapsed on the sofa next to her magazine. “I already know how to fight. I was Golden Gloves champion of Detroit when I was sixteen, case you forgot. Let’s drop it. Have a seat, Willie.”

He sat in an overstuffed chair facing the sofa. Through the large bay window he could see a lopsided moon hovering above their heads. Behind them the lawn ended in a distant stand of trees. Looking around, it occurred to Willie that this room was nearly as big as the house he grew up in. Yet the room somehow felt cramped, stuffed with too much furniture, too many lamps and vases and flowerpots, too many pictures on the walls, too many winking decanters. Willie sensed desperation in all this clutter.

The Surf gave his wife a recap of the Tigers game, which clearly bored her. Finally, when she gave out a big yawn he took the hint and drained his glass and stood up. “Willie’s going to take my car back to the club, Shug. Can you give me a lift over in the morning to pick it up?”

“Sure.” She accepted another peck on the cheek. Willie stood up and shook Chick Murphy’s hand and wished him goodnight. Instead of going upstairs Chick stepped into the half-bathroom under the staircase and, without closing the door all the way, took a stance at the toilet.

While Blythe struggled to light a fresh cigarette, Willie glanced at her husband. As he was zipping up his pants Chick gave out a little yelp of pain, then struggled to free his dick from his zipper. It was all Willie could do not to laugh out loud. Witnessing a white man’s distress — without him knowing it — was without a doubt one of life’s most under-rated joys.

After Chick made it up the stairs, Willie turned to say goodnight to Mrs. Murphy. But she said, “Sit down, Willie. Let me fix you a quick drink before you run off.”

What the hell, he thought. He was in no hurry to get back to the Quarters for the inevitable late-night poker game and sparring session with Wiggins and Hudson. “Thank you, Mrs. Murphy. I guess I could drink a beer if you’ve got one.”

She went to the bar and leaned over to fish in the refrigerator. Her skirt rode up far enough to reveal the tops of her stockings, the clasps of black garters, creamy slivers of thigh. Willie felt a pleasant buzzing in his groin and wondered if she was giving him this show on purpose or was just sloppy from the scotch.

She brought him a bottle of Cinci beer. “You need a glass?”

“No, ma’am,” he said, reaching for the bottle.

She didn’t let go of the bottle. “Cut the ‘ma’am’ crap, would you? We’re not at the club anymore. My name’s Blythe.”

He thought of the hippie girl Sunshine on Plum Street giving him the same command on Opening Day. He said, “The bottle’s fine, Blythe. Thank you very much.”

She released the bottle and returned to the sofa. Her stockings made a crackling sound when she crossed her legs. The Herb Alpert record ended, and to Willie’s relief she didn’t ask him to turn it over. “So tell me, Willie, where’s your home again?”

“Alabama. A little town called Andalusia, down around Mobile.”

“That’s right. My husband’s told me a lot about you. You’re Bob Brewer’s nephew, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And didn’t you go to college?”

“Just one year. A little less, actually. At Tuskegee.”

“Tuskegee?”

“It’s a black school in Alabama.”

“Oh. Our youngest boy’s playing football at Notre Dame. So why didn’t you graduate?” She re-crossed her legs. That crackling sound again.

Three gulps and already Willie could feel the beer going to work, thanks to fatigue and an empty stomach. “Well, Blythe, that’s a long story. The short of it is that I got caught up in the movement.”