Dark End of the Street

She must’ve fallen asleep with the television on, I thought as I rolled on my back, still wearing the same clothes from last night but missing a sock, and stared up at Saturday morning cartoons. I got to my feet, scratched the back of my neck, and flipped the channels until I found Scooby. One of the originals with the miner 49er and the ghost town. Man, I loved that one.

“It’s the innkeeper,” the girl said in a sleepy voice.

I turned to see her hugging the pillow, her brown eyes underlined with dark circles.

“He found uranium in the mines.”

I turned back to the television and watched Scooby eating Shaggy’s sub sandwich topped with whipped cream and olives. I pulled the loose sock off my foot and took a seat by the girl. Canned laughter filled the room.

“You ever see the one with Mama Cass?”

“She owns a candy factory,” Abby said.

“Wow,” I said. “Thought you had to be a child of the ‘sixties to understand.”

“Cartoon Network.”

“Ah,” I said. “Probably watched Smurfs.”

“What?”

“Blue people,” I said, shrinking the distance between my fingers. “Real small.”

Abby looked away, her hair wired with static electricity, and clutched the pillow tighter to her chest. She exhaled a long breath as if she were trying to expel a sickness. “You going to tell me who you are?”

“I did.”

“What’s that then?”

I looked over to my Army duffel bag topped off with the Stones and North Mississippi All-Stars CDs and a stainless-steel Browning 9mm. A leg of clean 501s poked from the top.

She said: “Doesn’t look like teacher’s shit to me.”

I smiled at the girl. “I have a slight inferiority complex.”

I covered the gun with the leg of my worn jeans and opened a window. I looked out at the new baseball stadium built for the Memphis Redbirds and lit that first morning cigarette. As soon as I took a drag, the smell got to me.

I suddenly had the urge to wash my hands. Maybe take a shower. I could smell the burn of the rifle on my fingers – I’d later dumped both guns in the Mississippi – and could still feel their heat in my hands. I remembered the sound the man’s body made as it dropped with bloated weight into the cotton field. That wicked moon bathing his dead face with a bright glow.

Abby steadily got to her feet and joined me at the window. Small city noises bleated inside. Abby wasn’t that tall, came up about to my chest. Her hair was bobbed to her chin. She had the kind of face that could wear her hair like that. Delicate. Chin like the point of a heart. Bet she had a dynamite smile if she’d ever smile.

A warm breath of wind washed over my face and I kept staring at the downtown buildings and the bridges crossing the Mississippi. I’d fucked up last night. No matter what was going on in the casino, I’d killed a man. I’d shot him right in the heart. My head pounded and my mouth tasted like cotton.

I tried to take a deep breath but the air felt shallow in my lungs. I’d been in several scuffles and I’d fired my gun a few times. But each time I awoke not truly knowing myself.

All of a sudden Abby asked me, “You ever feel like you could stick your hand in a fire and not feel a thing?” She was rubbing the reddened marks on her calves and sort of talking to herself.

I listened. A couple of horns honked from down on Union. Scooby and the gang ran from the space ghost. I looked down at my bare toes. I wiggled the ones on the left foot. “Sometimes… You want to tell me what was going on?”

She shook her head.

“I don’t know.”

“Who were they?”

Abby sat on the floor, pulled her knees to her chest, and started rocking. I came to her, bent down, and put my hand on her back. I dropped into this awkward half crouch, my knees aching like hell, but didn’t move my hand.

“I don’t know who they are,” she said again.

“Why would they want to hurt you?”

“You can’t help me.”

“Why would they want to hurt you?”

Abby placed her head on her forearms. “You tell me who they are and I’ll tell you everything,” she said.

“I have a friend we need to see,” I said, standing. “He’ll know.”

“You trust him?”

“Like a brother.”

Chapter 16

ULYSSES DAVIS RAN a bail bonds business down off Poplar not far from the courthouse and the Shelby County Jail. The neighborhood had nothing but bondsmen for several blocks, their neon signs advertising in the windows with telephone numbers and assurances: ANYTIME, ANY PRICE. But you couldn’t miss ole U’s place. At first, it looked like a damned art gallery. A lot of blue neon and pictures of martial arts film stars lining the walls. I once kidded U about it, said it looked like these were the folks he’d bailed out of jail. But U didn’t think that was funny. Since the time we played on the same Saints’ defense, U rarely thought I was funny.