“I mean, not exactly. But also kind of?”
No idea what to feel. I guess on the one hand, I’m slightly relieved he’s not after the ticket for himself. (At least I think he’s not….Who can really say at this point?)
But also: If this is a game to him, what does that make me?
I gulp.
“I said the wrong thing again, didn’t I?”
I sigh. Like, involuntarily.
Can I really be mad? I’m basically using him, aren’t I? Though he has been volunteering.
“Can I say one more thing?” he says.
“We’re in your car, Zan.”
“Okay. Well, just know this is the happiest I’ve been in a long time.”
“Huh?”
“This…journey we’re on. It’s fun, yeah. But it’s also nice. Being at home—let’s just say it’s not always my favorite place.”
“Really?” Now he’s got my attention.
“It can be lonely and kind of stifling. With you I feel freer.” He pulls his eyes from the road to stick them on me for a moment. Smiles in a way that turns my defensive mechanisms to vapor. “I’m living for it a little bit at this point.”
And for a different reason than usual, I have to look away.
* * *
—
There’s very loud, very upbeat music shaking the walls of the little clapboard house at the address Delores gave us.
So loud, in fact, we ring the doorbell and bang on the door, but nobody answers.
“Well, this is interesting.” Zan looks at me. “What do we do now?”
I lean to the right and try to peek into one of the windows. Curtains are too thick to see through. “I have no frickin’ ide—”
“Somethin’ I can help y’all with?”
Zan and I both whip around. At the opposite end of the walkway leading up to the house is a tall white man so skinny, it’s almost as if someone stood on his toes and pulled him up by the ears to stretch him out. His pants hover just at the top of his well-worn boots, his flannel shirt is misbuttoned, and there’s enough hair on his forearms and sprouting out of his collar to replace all that’s missing from the top of his head.
He looks petrified.
I’m standing there staring at him—his eyes are the palest blue I’ve ever seen—when Zan jabs me in the arm with his elbow.
“Oww!” I glower at him.
He moves his eyebrows up and down. (Dear lord, this boy is so obvious.)
“I’m sorry, sir,” I say to the man. “We’re looking for Beau Wilcox—”
“No Beau here!” He drops his head and makes a beeline to the door.
Zan and I part for him.
“Wrong house, wrong house,” he says, fumbling with a set of keys. “Y’all get outta here now, will ya?”
The door flies open, and a heavyset woman as tall as Zander with a face as red as a tomato puts her hand on her hip. “Beau, where the hell have you been?”
“Woman!” The man straightens his spine and lifts his chin. “I’m the man of this house! Do not question me in front of guests!”
The woman frowns at Beau, then sweeps her sour gaze over Zan and me. “And who are you?”
“Don’t question them either! That’s MY job!”
She rolls her eyes and shuts the door. He doesn’t turn around.
“Umm…Mr. Wilco—?” I start.
“Who are ya and whattaya want?”
“We’re students from Metro Atlanta, sir,” I say. “You drove a taxi there, right?”
He doesn’t respond, so I go on: “I work at a gas station in Norcross, and you had a passenger on Christmas Eve. An older black lady. I have a picture here….We’re trying to find her, and we’re wondering if—”
“I took her to the big church. We done here?”
Zan and I look at each other again, then back at Beau. “The big church?”
“Victorious Faith, or somethin’ like that. She was my only passenger that night.”
“Okay—”
“You’re going now, right? That’s everything I know.”
Zan makes a circular motion around his ear with his index finger. Mouths “weirdo.”
I shove him. “You’re sure this was a small-framed, older black lady?”
“Well, yeah! I know who I drove.”
“Short white hair?”
“Like a mini-Afro, that’s right,” he says.
“Victorious Faith Church?”
“That’s what I said, ain’t it? It was her first time there. She told me so.”
“Oka—”
“Y’all get on now.” And he walks into the house and closes the door.
Impound lots are pretty depressin’, but I ain’t never seen nothin’ sadder than good ol’ Beau the day he removed all his stuff from inside me. He was sobbing like a baby.
If you ask me, it’s nothin’ short of a travesty that they fired the fella. Lotto jackpot was $212 million buckeroos—course the guy couldn’t resist stopping to buy a ticket! “Gambling on the clock.” Tuh! That measly wage they paid was hardly enough for him and his family to scrape by! What the hell did they expect?
I sure do miss him and our adventures. That last lady we drove was sweet as pie too. There’s still one of those little lightbulbs from her sweater sittin’ on my backseat. She bought a lotto ticket too, and nobody gave her any flack for it.
People always talk about how badly blacks have it in this country, but Beau’s skin’s the same color as most CEOs and he sure ain’t gettin’ no legs up.
Poor guy.
I know I ain’t been cranked in a while so I’m gettin’ a little rusty, but I still think it’s downright shameful the way working-class folk get treated round here.
When I get home from work Saturday afternoon, Mama and Jax aren’t there. Since my next adventure with Zan-the-Mack—a trip to the church Beau mentioned—isn’t until tomorrow, I kick off my boots, stretch out on the couch, and try to relax.
It works…briefly. Just as I hit that spot between wakefulness and the edge of a dream, there’s a loud thump.